First Amendment for journalism

By Kurt Hyde

Freedom of the press is vital to the plight of democracy because it preserves the right to inform and the right to be informed. Alexander Hamilton explains in the Federalist Paper #84 why he believed freedom of the press did not belong in the U.S. Constitution: “What is liberty of the press? Who can give it any definition which would not leave the utmost latitude for evasion?”

The prevailing sentiment during the founding era of our republic was a deep distrust of a centralized government, due to the lingering resentment toward the English crown. The states ratified the Bill of Rights in order to protect certain civil rights. The First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The First Amendment reaffirmed that it was in the jurisdictions of the states to write the laws necessary to protect people from defamation while protecting journalists’ right to inform and readers’ right to be informed.

The right to be informed includes the right to decide the news sources by which one is to be informed. This is best accomplished by limiting censorship and allowing news outlets to have more access to sensitive information. In this digital age, many readers peruse the Internet to get their daily fix of news. Doing this opens up an entirely new manner of exploring and learning about the world around us, because the news reaches our desktops almost the instant something happens. So long as the Internet is kept safe from heavy regulations, news outlets will have the most powerful tool available to inform the public.

Benjamin Franklin was asked once what form of government the new country would have. He replied, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” Keeping freedom of the press safe requires a communal effort. It requires a special effort on the part of journalists to share accurate news and unbiased reporting in order to preserve their roles as watchdogs of business and government. But it also requires a perhaps more thorough effort on the part of the public to be news consumers and seek out multiple sources in order to get the most accurate accounts of everyday happenings.

Ultimately, it comes down to practicing freedom of the press in order to safeguard it from the dangers of that freedom being misused to push political agendas and deliberately misinform the public.