The First Amendment Bubble : How Privacy and Paparazzi Threaten a Free Press / Amy Gajda.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gajda, Amy, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Constitution--1st Amendment.

United States.

Freedom of the press--United States.

Freedom of the press.

Freedom of information--United States.

Freedom of information.

Privacy, Right of--United States.

Privacy, Right of.

Paparazzi--United States.

Paparazzi.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (317 p.)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In determining the news that’s fit to print, U.S. courts have traditionally declined to second-guess professional journalists. But in an age when news, entertainment, and new media outlets are constantly pushing the envelope of acceptable content, the consensus over press freedoms is eroding. The First Amendment Bubble examines how unbridled media are endangering the constitutional privileges journalists gained in the past century. For decades, judges have generally affirmed that individual privacy takes a back seat to the public’s right to know. But the growth of the Internet and the resulting market pressures on traditional journalism have made it ever harder to distinguish public from private, news from titillation, journalists from provocateurs. Is a television program that outs criminals or a website that posts salacious videos entitled to First Amendment protections based on newsworthiness? U.S. courts are increasingly inclined to answer no, demonstrating new resolve in protecting individuals from invasive media scrutiny and enforcing their own sense of the proper boundaries of news. This judicial backlash now extends beyond ethically dubious purveyors of infotainment, to mainstream journalists, who are seeing their ability to investigate crime and corruption curtailed. Yet many—heedless of judicial demands for accountability—continue to push for ever broader constitutional privileges. In so doing, Amy Gajda warns, they may be creating a First Amendment bubble that will rupture in the courts, with disastrous consequences for conventional news.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

1. An Introduction

2. Legal Protections for News and Truthful Information: The Past

3. Legal Protections for News and Truthful Information: The Present

4. The Devolution of Mainstream Journalism

5. The Rise, and Lows, of Quasi-Journalism

6. The New Old Legal Call for Privacy

7. The First Amendment Bubble, Absolutism, and Hazardous Growth

8. Drawing Difficult Lines

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jun 2020)

ISBN:

9780674967120

0674967127

9780674735705

0674735706

OCLC:

897599796