Minnesota Gag Law

One of the most renowned court cases involving using a prior restraint on a publication was Near v. Minnesota (1931). After the The Saturday Press, a newspaper owned by J.M Near, wrote an article claiming that his city was being secretly ruled by Jewish gangs and directly targeted several public figures. An injunction was ordered by Minnesota officials to prevent Near from publishing his story under a state law that permitted such action. The Supreme Court ruled that the state’s law that prohibited and denied Near’s newspaper to publish the story violated the First Amendment. Thus the Court established that the government could not censor or restrain any publication in advance, even though the communication may be punishable after its release

The election of Donald Trump as the new President, and his animosity towards the journalists and Press in general, has challenged the news media with threats, describing news as fake and calling journalists’ liars and terrible people. The documentary shows how Trump’s strategy corresponds to that of Thiel’s supporting the Hogan case and also the purchase of Las Vegas Review-Journal by Sheldon Adelson, a powerful business magnate and investor. The documentary spends a significant extent of time showing interviews of reporters at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, who reported the story that their own publication had been purchased by Adelson. Through this, Knappenberger highlights an alarming issue that threatens freedom and future of the

America holds the illusion of ‘land of the free and home of the brave.’ This by any means, is not true if we continue to classify big media corporations as free press. Big corporations like Fox news, CNN, Union Tribune, etc. are also referred to as mainstream media and are completely under the control of the elite 1%. Time and again mainstream media has proved as unrepresentative, only serving the ones who pay them. In a nation where democracy is valued, people rely heavily on news sources to gather information, therefore, they need sources who can provide uncensored information that enables them to make knowledgeable decisions about their government.

For centuries the debate over how far our first amendment extends has reoccurred and been ever present in the court system. The Alien and Sedition acts was the first time it became noticeable that there were limits attached to our speech. They can be traced back as the beginning of this issue, since the dilemma of what exactly “freedom of speech” means began being argued. Multiple different scenarios were brought forth to the legal system in order to determine whether punishment was due or the act was excusable, simply because of the fact that our government was slacking in establishing a set-in stone meaning behind the first amendment.

Oliver Wendell Holmes begins his argument by insisting that the defendants had as much of a right to publish the leaflets as the government had to publish the constitution. Holmes rejected the argument that the defendants' leaflets posed the "clear and present danger" He went on to say that and went on to say even if "enough can be squeezed from these poor and puny anonymities to turn the color of legal litmus paper" and the speech could be punished as an attempted crime, the people were prosecuted under the wrong circumstances. Holmes went on to say that the punishment they individuals received where founded on the basis of beliefs and not regarding the dangerous attempts. He later went on to say that the Wilson Administration abused their

The hallmark of American democracy is the nation’s vigilant press. However, intense rhetoric against Journalists saw an increase during the recent

Press: Stupid Love,” Dowd attempts, and succeeds, at painting the President as a narcissist who lives off of the media backlash. She writes, “Trump could not live without the press. It is his crack.” (Dowd). By comparing Trump’s love of the press to that of an addict to drugs, she is able to set a foundation for her opinion that will be continued throughout her piece. She follows up with a paradox concerning how even though the media has bashed him more times than not, the President does not shy away. “Maggie Haberman tweeted In January, ‘Trump has frequently complained about my reporting, yet he remains the most accessible politician I’ve ever covered.’” (Dowd). This paradox of complaining, yet wanting more to complain about, leads to even more of a clearly painted narrative of Trump’s

In the mid-twentieth century, the news media were one of America’s most trusted institutions. The 1956 American National Election Study (ANES) found that 66% of Americans thought newspapers were fair, while only 27% said they were unfair. These views were bipartisan, with 78% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats viewing newspapers as fair. When the Roper Organization asked a similar question about network news in two 1964 polls, 71% and 61% of the public thought it was fair, while just 12% and 17% thought it was unfair. In 1973, when the General Social Survey (GSS) began regularly measuring con dence in various national institu- tions, only 15% of respondents had “hardly any” con dence in the press.

On the day of President Trump’s Inauguration, Time reporter Zeke Miller wrote that a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office. He retracted the statement a few minutes later and apologized for making a mistake. Miller’s apology was ignored by many, including President Trump. A day later, in a speech given to the CIA, President Trump accused Miller of false reporting. “So Zeke, Zeke from Time magazine writes this story about ‘I took down’ — I would never do that because I have great respect for Dr. Martin Luther King. But this is how dishonest the media is.” By accusing Miller of false reporting, President Trump was accusing the reporter of spreading what became commonly known during the 2016 presidential

In the book Freedom for the Thought that we Hate, author Anthony Lewis takes a simply phrased law, the First Amendment and shows how complex freedom of speech really is once put into the real world of freedom, as we know it. He shows through his rejections of absolutism, strong support towards freedom restriction, and objective analysis of Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, that the United States press is unlike any other in the world.

The First Amendment of The Constitution is acknowledged to be the guarantor of Freedom of Speech clause in the United States. The same level of recognition Freedom of Speech receives is also given to the controversy that is has created. The ambiguity that revolves around Freedom of Speech has led to question its validity, due to the scope in which each case is presented, most notably at the time in which the United States was experiencing social and political ideologies. Thus, the Supreme Court had the arduous task of intervening and creating measures that would distinguish constitutionally protected speech and speech that would be regulated. The two most important interpretations that have allowed the Supreme Court to distinguish constitutionally

In modern life, news outlets distribute satire and caricatures of government institutions and its leaders to the public via numerous social media platforms, television, and magazines with little to no repercussion. Currently, the most famous political figure satirized in the media is the forty-fifth President of the United States, Donald Trump. Harshly criticized for his politics, pseudo-professionalism, and demeanor, the President brandishes the reports and depictions of his misdoing as “fake news”. Protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, the citizens and press are at liberty to represent the United States President as a little handed, orange colored man with an overexaggerated combover (Figure 1). Indeed, Donald Trump is neither

Federal Law states that freedom of press cannot be taken away from you. Thomas Jefferson states in 1786, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” A speech delivered by Erskine Halls on June 5th 1931, “….the U.S supreme court overruled the lower courts’ decisions, recognizing the gag law for what it actually is: Censorship.”

Christiane Amanpour from CNN said: "I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did." The aspect of self-censorship of the media confirmed also a reporter of The Washington Post Walter Pincus. Pincus had written many critical articles about the Bush administration and they all ended up published in the back

Do you read, follow, or pay attention to CNN, ABC, or NBC’s News? NO! According to President Donald Trump, all these companies share “FAKE NEWS”! On February 6th, 2017, Trump tweeted, “Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting” (@realDonaldTrump). A few minutes later he tweeted, “I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies!” (@realDonaldTrump). For a while now, there has been an overwhelming amount of media focused on Donald Trump’s actions. Apparently, news companies such as CNN, ABC, and NBC have been sharing false polls and news lately causing Trump’s