U.S. students say press freedoms go too far

[revwardoc]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/educati...ts-press_x.htm

One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.

The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get "government approval" of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.

Asked whether the press enjoys "too much freedom," not enough or about the right amount, 32% say "too much," and 37% say it has the right amount. Ten percent say it has too little.

The survey of First Amendment rights was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and conducted last spring by the University of Connecticut. It also questioned 327 principals and 7,889 teachers.

The findings aren't surprising to Jack Dvorak, director of the High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington. "Even professional journalists are often unaware of a lot of the freedoms that might be associated with the First Amendment," he says.

The survey "confirms what a lot of people who are interested in this area have known for a long time," he says: Kids aren't learning enough about the First Amendment in history, civics or English classes. It also tracks closely with recent findings of adults' attitudes.

"It's part of our Constitution, so this should be part of a formal education," says Dvorak, who has worked with student journalists since 1968.

Although a large majority of students surveyed say musicians and others should be allowed to express "unpopular opinions," 74% say people shouldn't be able to burn or deface an American flag as a political statement; 75% mistakenly believe it is illegal.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1989 ruled that burning or defacing a flag is protected free speech. Congress has debated flag-burning amendments regularly since then; none has passed both the House and Senate.

Derek Springer, a first-year student at Ivy Tech State College in Muncie, Ind., credits his journalism adviser at Muncie Central High School with teaching students about the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, press and religion.

Last year, Springer led a group of student journalists who exposed payments a local basketball coach made to players for such things as attending practices and blocking shots. The newspaper also questioned requirements that students register their cars with the school to get parking passes.

Because they studied the First Amendment, he says, "we know that we can publish our opinion, and that we might be scrutinized, but we know we didn't do anything wrong."

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As facism rears its ugly head!

[Andy]

With rights come responsibilities. What if someone working for the L.A. Times published a story in 1943 about the Manhattan Project? What good, what harm could it have made if a reporter from the Boston Globe wrote an article in 1944, saying that his un-named sources in the Pentagon, say that Ike will lead the invasion of Europe sometime in June? Could it have caused our military harm if a year or two before the F-17 was deployed, that a New York paper ran a story about our new stealth air craft in development?

England has a law pertaining to state secrets. There are certain secrets that can not be published if it endangers the public or compromises an intelligence operation. Our 5th amendment has about 8 exceptions, why not a list of exceptions to the 1st?

If a reporter writes a story and there is a direct causes and effect to the death of one American, shouldn?t he be held responsible?

Stay healthy,
Andy

[melody1181]

I think allot of the media would sell their souls to make a buck or big news. Wouldn't mind seeing there abilities limitied with certain state secrets. Some are to hidden then some are just out there to see.

[revwardoc]

As far as the Manhattan Project and Operation Overlord go, that was a time of national crisis. I agree that some things that could have an adverse affect on national security should be censored.

However, to give the government a blanket policy of censorship of the news is, like I added to the original post, facism.

I'm a great believer in the 1st Amendment and in truth. Surrendering that truth to the whims and foibles of any given administration would, I believe, be disastrous to the American way of life.

[Tamaroa]

Harken ye back to the days of the Civil War when Grant refused to tell Lincoln what the casualties were during the overland campaign (60K in 6 weeks). Grant knew that if these horrific numbers came to light that Lincoln might not be re-elected as the public would be stupified by the news. Hence he forbade the press from the camps.

What do you think would have happened if McClellan the peace democrat had been elected. Theres a time and place for censorship. Personally, I believe these embed reporters did us way more harm than good in Iraq.

Bill

[Seascamp]

What I?m seeing here in Central Europe is that about 80% of the population has zero faith in what any Media has to say. There is local Magyar (Hungarian) news plus CNN, BBC, French, German, Italian and Canadian cable channels. Add to this the full width and depth of the www and there are opinions and spin a plenty, plus an obvious political agenda in most instances. I suspect that the disbelief numbers would be similar in the US, but haven?t seen any numbers that indicate a similar situation.

I think there have been way too many trips to the ?spin well? by the Media and we will, as a result, see continuing erosion of Media credibility on a global basis. As I see it, this erosion of credibility is and will continue to act as an intrinsic check and balance that the drafters of the first amendment didn?t envision but probably would be happy to see.

Perhaps, what the students were communicating was a sensed Media credibility issue. Laws and/or Government censorship/participation (NPR for example) do not insure Media credibility, professionalism, objectivity or ethics, but a free market can have tremendous impact and this is beginning to happen.

The rumored merger of CNN and CBS probably has a lot to do with a declining market share for each and a similar approach/commitment to serving up pre planned and pre digested news and information meals.

Scamp