Talk:Freedom of the press in the United States/Archive 1

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Archive 1

United States v. The Progressive

This is a fascinating legal case, anyone want to collaborate on improving the page with me? Please leave a note on my user talk page,—Cirt (talk) 18:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The intro...

....has no clear relation to the topic.

This article has

This article has several inaccuracies and omissions. As set forth below, I tried to correct some of these but some Wikipedia editor has seen fit to prevent this (and removed supporting references I supplied). Anyway, here are my observations.

John Hancock did not publish the first newspaper in the United States; he was a revolutionary era-figure. The Pennsylvania Gazette was not the leading publication of the colonial period; there were others at least as influential, most notably, the Massachusetts Spy published by Isaiah Thomas which helped inspire the Revolutionary movement.

John Locke's ideas were important to the American revolution but Locke was not very important in the area of press freedom. Far more important in this area during the late 18th century were the writings of Richard Price (which were reprinted in newspapers throughout the colonies), James Burgh (whose political treatise was published in Philadephia) and Phillip Furneaux (who advocated absolute protection of free speech). The were no convictions of writers or printers in the colonies that became the United States during the period 1735 until after the Constitution was ratified. (Only a couple of times the the authorities even dare to bring charges, and the cases failed) Many American political leaders (notably, John Alexander, John Adams, Jonathan Mayhew, James Alexander, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others) favored very broad press freedom during the colonial and Revolutionary periods; they aren't mentioned here.

During the Washington Administration the attorney general refused to allow prosecution of people who advocated resisting the tax laws, on grounds that the first amendment protected their freedom to write and say this. American experience during the 18th century was very different than in Britain where hundreds of people were thrown in jail or "transported" to penal colonies for writings that the government and judges disapproved of.

New York Times v. Sullivan did not say that writings needed to be libelous to be false. In civil libel cases, like NYT v Sullivan, the American rule has long been that the plaintiff must prove the writings to be false. NYT v. Sullivan said that, if the writings are about a public figure, then the plaintiff must prove that the writings are both false and malicious -- that is, they were made with knowing or reckless disregard of the truth and not for legitimate purposes. This standard goes back the the Seven Bishops Case in England in 1695 where a judge gave an opinion that a libel case must be dismissed unless the writing were shown to be false, malicious and made with a bad intent. However, in England that standard was later rejected and replaced by a much more repressive English rule that a libel case could proceed if the plaintiff proved actual damages from the writing and that the defendant had the burden of proving the writing to be true. In America, however, plaintiffs in civil lible cases have traditionally been required to prove falsehood as an element of their claim.

I attempted to post some edits to this article (and the Wikipedia article on Seditious Libel) with supporting references some time ago. They were censored by a Wikipedia editor who said I was violating the policy on references because I included a link to a website which I thought was helpful. He said the link violated some policy, and proceeded to remove all information I posted and references, not just the link. I don't fully understand his reasons but I don't much care. I've given up on trying the edit these Wikipedia articles, but I am concerned about the inaccuracy of the information. (Some of the current inaccuracies have been added since I tried to post corrections and so I've added some material here that wasn't in my attempted edits.) I'm posting this discussion in hopes that some Wikipedia editor won't censor it, perhaps.

Important references that have been removed include, The Bill of Rights by Irving Brant (setting for the history of British and American press freedom), Unoriginal Misunderstanding by Kenneth Shear (describing the development of American concepts of press freedom in the 18th century), and The Story of Civil Liberties in the United States by Leon Whipple (cataloging struggles for press freedom and judicial betrayals of press freedom, religious liberty and equal protection during the 19th century) Albion Tourgee the Younger (talk) 20:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Reference to BP

A "notable exception" lists BP's purported collaboration with the USCG at censoring the Gulf Oil spill. Does a mere allegation which has received no formal judicial review constitute an exception to Freedom of the Press? I feel this should be stricken. Mstefaniak (talk) 19:13, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

External links modified

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Obama Administration Section

It feels extremely biased, but I'm not entirely sure. Should it be rewritten/removed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by RapidStrike (talk • contribs) 23:27, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Seconded. It seems an unneeded addition about a single president. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr. Phorcys (talk • contribs) 14:58, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Trump attacks "fake news media" as “the enemy of the people” ,

and Sean Spicer], the White House press secretary, barred journalists from The New York Times and several other news organizations from attending his daily briefing (24 Febr 2017), "a highly unusual breach of relations between the White House and its press corps" (nytimes.com.

(also recognised here in Germany: FAZ.net, http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/trump-regierung-schliesst-zahlreiche-medien-von-pressekonferenz-aus-a-1136262.html spiegel.de], zeit.de )

Trump's attacks are imo worth to mention in the article. --Neun-x (talk) 03:49, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

19AUG2018 Following the link to the Spicer briefing to track down the quote, Trump called the "FAKE NEWS media" the "enemy of the people", not "journalists", so I changed the title of this section from 'Trump attacks journalists as “the enemy of the people”' to 'Trump attacks "fake news media" as “the enemy of the people”'.

Yellow journalism

Why no mention of yellow journalism? The vast majority of newspapers that were once reliable and unbiased a mere ten ago now have a far-left bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.34.177.64 (talk) 02:50, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Because independent reliable sources have not stated that the vast majority of newspapers, despite being owned by large corporations, suddenly began to bias coverage to the far-left. Perhaps you'd be more at home editing Conservapedia or Metapedia, anonymous. - SummerPhDv2.0 23:54, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Freedom of the Press - under fire

FOTP is not free from dispute. The latest being "media bias" no matter whose position you support. Call it "false news" or whatever. The founding fathers considered news to be rendition of truth in their day. It is no longer the case. FOTP is now a battlefront between various media outlets and their pundits. Truth in reporting needs more evidence and less opinions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C48:7006:200:D84D:5A80:173:901D (talk) 03:30, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Here in PCB FL they said the judge can stop the processing news what can I do to get the new to the court room Jim&tiff (talk) 00:33, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is not maintained by Bellingcat

The final sentence of the "U.S. Press Freedom Tracker" section, "The tracker is maintained and findings are published by Bellingcat.", is incorrect. It is maintained by the Freedom of the Press Foundation (my current employer), as mentioned in the paragraph earlier. Sources: Wired (used on FPF's article), CJR, ABC News, and the tracker's own About page.

I believe at some point Bellingcat was maintaining its own database of press freedom violations, but certainly it is not maintaining the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Disclosure: As I mentioned, the Freedom of the Press Foundation is my current employer, and one of my co-workers brought this inaccuracy to my attention. I am making this request in my off-work time though. Legoktm (talk) 03:57, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

 Done In fact, even the source used (Guardian) in the article supports your statement. PK650 (talk) 05:56, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
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