That’s the troubling situation we could find ourselves in if “fake news” becomes shorthand for reporting that the government doesn’t agree with. But if people don’t believe the mainstream media can be trusted, then they won’t believe journalists if they publish evidence of corruption or illegal activity by the government. “We’re in a situation now where one party controls three branches of the government, so the fourth estate, the press, is really the last mechanism that the public has to force accountability on government,” Timm says. And the press also occupies another critical role: watchdog. An independent press ensures that citizens stay informed about the actions of their government, creating a forum for debate and the open exchange of ideas. Thomas Jefferson famously mused that he’d rather have newspapers without a country than a country without newspapers, and for good reason. “Fake news” is more than an insult - it hampers the press in its efforts to protect the public. United States (1971), which ruled that the Nixon Administration could not use vague pronouncements of “national security” to censor the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Minnesota (1931), which held that it was largely unconstitutional for a government to censor the press, and New York Times v. However, a number of Supreme Court cases in the 20th century were able to establish robust legal protections for the press. The Sedition Act of 1798 made it criminal to criticize high-ranking government officials anti-war activists during WWI were jailed and FDR created an Office of Censorship during WWII in an attempt to control the media narrative around the war effort. Along the way, the US government has scored some key victories in stifling the press. US history has been marked by an ongoing conflict between the government’s attempts to strengthen and protect itself and the press’s attempts to scrutinize and report on the government.
First amendment freedom of press free#
And because a free press was so pivotal in their efforts to overthrow British rule, the Founding Fathers decided to protect that right with the First Amendment, ratified in 1791.īut the rights protected by the First Amendment have never been absolute.
Speeches, pamphlets and newspapers were critical in informing and galvanizing public support for the revolt. “Some of the most important voices before and during the American Revolution were anonymous pamphleteers who were writing under pseudonyms, talking about the crimes of the British government,” Timm says. The US owes its existence in part to a free press. Here, Timm shares a brief overview of press freedom in America and explains why government whistleblowers are so vital to an independent press. The Foundation’s newest tool is the US Press Freedom Tracker, which monitors violations in the US. Timm, a lawyer and a TED Fellow, runs the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit organization that defends journalists through Internet advocacy, crowdfunding campaigns and tools to protect reporters and their sources (including SecureDrop, a safe way for whistleblowers to send information to journalists). That’s right - 42 countries, including Ghana, South Africa and Jamaica - are judged by Reporters Without Borders to have greater press freedom than the United States, whose freedom is enshrined in its most important document. For these reasons, the US ranks number 43 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index. Journalists are also increasingly being stopped and searched at US borders, and they’ve recently been arrested for covering protests at the inauguration and at Standing Rock. What’s perhaps less widely known is the Obama administration’s prosecution of a record eight whistleblowers for leaking government secrets to the media. This trend goes beyond the current president and his administration branding credible news outlets as “fake news” and threatening journalists and leakers with lawsuits.
“It has always been the bulwark against secret government, against authoritarianism and against tyranny.”Īmericans take great pride in their press freedom. “The First Amendment is the safety valve of our democracy,” says US free press advocate Trevor Timm (TED Talk: How free is our freedom of the press?). It protects free speech and a free press in America (in addition to religion, assembly and petition) without it, the country would look completely different. The First Amendment of the US Constitution is only 45 words, but it packs a punch. Sacha Vega/TED An independent press is one of the essential pillars of a democracy, and we need to support journalists and whistleblowers alike to protect it, says lawyer and free press advocate Trevor Timm.
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