Facts The Red Lion Broadcasting Co. held a broadcast as part of a “Christian Crusade” series. During this broadcast, a book was discussed that was written by Fred Cook. The broadcaster said that Mr. Cook had been, “fired by a newspaper for making false charges against city official, and that he worked for a Communist-affiliated publication.” Mr. Cook said this broadcast was a personal attack against him and demanded airtime for him to be able to respond and defend himself. Red Lion Broadcasting Co. refused to give him airtime. The FCC said that Red Lion Broadcasting Co. was in violation of the “fairness doctrine” which requires that “public issues be presented by broadcasters and that each side of those issues be given fair coverage.” Red …show more content…
Because of this limitation, the government has the ability to regulate the medium of broadcasting more cautiously. The Court mentioned that having a license to broadcast only permits just that, broadcasting. The permit does not allow the licensee to dominate or exploit that frequency. The Court ruled that “there is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others and to conduct himself as a proxy or fiduciary with obligations to present those views and voices which are representative of his community and which would otherwise, by necessity, be barred from the airwaves...” Therefore, the First Amendment of the Constitution was not violated. The “scarcity of broadcast frequencies,” gives the government a significant interest in making those frequencies available to express all points of view rather than simply monopolizing the airwaves to those who hold licenses. The Government’s adequate concern when it comes to ensuring “that a broadcaster’s programming ranges widely enough to serve the public interest” is the main standing for this
The constitution including its amendments is considered the “supreme law of the land”. The constitution has been enhanced by being steadily challenged to further interpret the meaning. These test come through many different legal cases that are brought to the Supreme Court; for example. The first amendment states “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting…or abridging the freedom of speech…” Though there are restrictions on a person’s first amendment rights, in the Hazlewood v. Kuhlmeier case this amendment was challenge when students of the school newspaper believed their rights were taken away by the principal because two pages of articles were deleted from the paper.
Section 2(b) guarantees freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including the freedom of the press and other media of
They ruled that the 1st amendment did not guarantee ultimate freedom of speech and anyone violating the government could be overthrown by the state. The historical impact that the case was made mostly from Justice Brandeis, who stated that immediate serious and evil threats should be the only ones that are taken seriously enough to strip away someone’s granted rights. Brandeis’s opinion was put to use in 1969 when the case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, which is when the court overruled the decision. Yes, there are laws to help protect the natural-born citizens of this country, but if they can be taken and maneuvered to make sure the courts get what they want, why have
This case is also regularly cited in other Supreme Court cases and is often a deciding factor. It has been used in cases like Konigsberg v. State Bar “That view, which of course cannot be reconciled with the law relating to libel, slander, misrepresentation, obscenity, perjury, false advertising, solicitation of crime, complicity by encouragement, conspiracy, and the like, is said to be compelled by the fact that the commands of the First Amendment are stated in unqualified terms: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble . . . . " But as Mr. Justice Holmes once said: "[T]he provisions of the Constitution are not mathematical formulas having their essence in their form; they are organic living institutions transplanted from English soil.
Supreme Court, in Burstyn v. Wilson, declared that the right of Americans to communicate, and receive ideas must be given and the states and cities were given fair warning that the era of total state interest was over. The majority of the Court did not follow Justice Frankfurter and simply declare the New York law void for vagueness. Instead they declared that movies were entitled to free speech protection. And even though this might not mean the application of the identical rules that govern other media of communication, it meant some protection, yet to be defined
The first amendment is one that is fully incorporated, there have been many cases to assure that each freedom mentioned takes place in limiting the government’s power in contradicting the constitution. For example, in 1925 there was a case, Giltow v. New York, this case fought for freedom of speech. Giltow had been publishing communist articles for distribution in the U.S., he arrested under a state law of criminal anarchy. Giltow tried to argue that because there were no violent results due to his publications that his arrest was invalid. The court came to the decision that the right to free speech applies to state laws under the 14th amendment.
Government employers, the Court wrote, could restrict their employees ' speech in ways that would be unconstitutional if applied to the public. However, government employees had the right to speak on matters of public concern, such as on
Plus, in an interview, he mentioned the book burnings in China, Germany and Russia. The book was published eight years after the World War II, not really far from the time when book-burnings were an important part of the national socialism in Germany(Interesting Literature, 2013). In the interview, he also talked about the book burnings in the McCarthy era. In that period, 30,000 books which were written by communist sympathizers or contained pro communist themes, were banned and removed from the shelves of public libraries. He was widely upset with this and said, “Anything that touches the library, touches me(YouTube, 2011).”
Censorship of The First Amendment This paper will discuss how censorship denies citizens of the United States our full rights as delineated in the First Amendment. It will outline how and why the first amendment was created and included in the Constitution of the United States of America. This paper will also define censorship, discuss a select few legal cases surrounding freedom of speech and censorship as well as provide national and local examples of censorship.
The 1st amendment is fundamental in a democracy, it gives each individual their opinion about a certain subject and gives the people the "power" to speak out when they find something wrong. For example, they can speak what they find wrong with our Representatives, without the retaliation or censorship of the government. You might think that you can go down the street and say whatever you like without anybody telling you can't. Hold your horse right there be aware that you can say what you want but there is certain things that the 1st amendment doesn't cover. The Supreme Court has some cases where it decided where the 1st amendment was appropriate and where it wasn't.
People have the tendency to take the First Amendment for granted, but some tend to use it to their favor. Stanley Fish presents his main argument about how people misuse this amendment for all their conflicts involving from racial issues to current political affairs in his article, Free-Speech Follies. His article involves those who misinterpret the First Amendment as their own works or constantly use it as an excuse to express their attitudes and desires about a certain subject matter. He expresses his personal opinions against those who consistently use the First Amendment as a weapon to defend themselves from harm of criticism.
I A. B. Cantwell v Connecticut (1940) D. Jesse Cantwell and his son going door to door in their neighborhood talking badly to people about the religion of catholicism which lead to two people becoming angry. This leads to the Cantwells being arrested for breaking a local ordinance that requires a permit for solicitation and also for encouraging an infraction of the peace E. Were the Cantwells first amendment free speech rights violated when they were religious views were suppressed and did they encourage an infraction of the peace or not. F.The court ruled that you could restrict general solicitation but you could not put limitation based on religion and that if you did so it would be trying to silence someone's views.
Fox went to United States Court of Appeals in 2009 case to the Second Circuit Appeal Court to appeal. The court ruled against the FCC rule sating it was “vague” and
Public service broadcasting is European revision policy. It has been incepted in 1920s and since then have been criticised to be elitist and work more for producers than consumers needs. Situation has changed after liberalisation of broadcasting sphere: no legitimacy without the audience. Public broadcaster`s success in 1990s provoked criticism from governments and private broadcasters. Renewed broadcasting brought the new issues: tax or licence payers should benefit but it may lead to commercialisation of broadcasting.
But the positive interaction of government-press-society does not mean that each party must lose the function of its functional idealism. For if each existence is not approached with independent and interdependent responsibilities and obligations, it can be ascertained that each party will not be able to assume its rights and responsibilities. It means that the government should be given authority, as an authorized and responsible body to regulate the interests and spheres of its citizens. The press must remain authorized to carry out its distinctive social control functions.