Monthly Archives: April 2017

High school student support for the First Amendment is at its highest in 10 years, according to a Knight Foundation survey. (Chuck Dearden)

High school student support for the First Amendment is at its highest point in 10 years, according to a recently published Knight Foundationsurvey.

The Knight Foundations Future of the First Amendment Survey began in 2004 and sampled more than 300 high schools. Subsequent surveys were conducted in 2006, 2007, 2011, 2014 and 2016 from random samples of the same participating schools.

Ninety-one percent of high school students now agree people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions, compared to 83 percent in 2004, according to the survey results.

Im really glad that more people are understanding the importance of the First Amendment, said Robert Walz, a BYU journalism professor and former ABC4 News reporter. Thats kind of what I built my whole career on.

Walz said he sees the millennial generation exercising their First Amendment rights daily, as opposed to remembering his generation only thinking about those rights once a month or once a year.

The report reveals how student perspectives are changing in a new media environment and opens opportunities for educators, journalists and defenders of the First Amendment to anticipate and address the challenges that may affect our most fundamental rights, said Jennifer Preston, Vice President of journalism at the Knight Foundation, in a news release.

Mountain View High School government teacher Robert Stoddard said he teaches the First Amendment by focusing on the individual rights it protects and by using Supreme Court cases.

Stoddard said he thinks the rise of social media brought upmany questions regarding what can and cant be said or written.

I also think that because of this last election, young people more than ever are developing stronger opinions about government and its role, Stoddard said. People question more than ever what, exactly, should the government be doing.I think this is a great thing.

The survey found students have five times more trust than teachersin the media and stories individuals post on social media. Twenty-sixpercent of todays high school students say news posted by individuals is more trustworthy than stories from professional journalists, and 29 percent say they are equally trustworthy.

Millennials trust Twitter more than they do the newspaper, Walz said.

Walz said hes seen millennials grow up in a time when there is huge distrust of organizations such as business, government and religion.

I think the individual has become more trustworthy than the organizations and institutions, Walz said. So because of that, I see the millennial generation using the First Amendment more than they ever did before. Theyre speaking out on things because now they can.

Stoddard said he thinks high school students trust social media more because studentsmake up a large percentage of social media users.

Teachers are still somewhat trusting that journalists have some amount of training and journalistic integrity that will hold them accountable to finding and printing as unbiased of an account as possible, Stoddard said.

The survey found students who frequently consume news are more supportive of the First Amendment than students who do not consume news often.

Emery High School senior Ashton Dieli said he watches quite a bit of news in his government classes and on social media.

I think it is important that we continue to use our freedom of speech and assembly and all that, but with that, people need to also use their freedom of thought, Dieli said.

Dieli said he believes traditional news is biased most of the time, but still thinks its a better source than social media.

The survey showed 56 percent of students in 2016 disagree with the statement, The First Amendment goes too far in the rights it protects, compared to 37 percent in 2006.

Journalists in other countries do not have nearly as many rights as American journalists protected under the First Amendment, Walz said.

They sacrifice their lives to get that information, Walz said. Were lucky in the United States that as long as we dont libel somebody and its the truth, we can say whatever we want. Its pretty cool when you think about it.

McKenna Park is an aspiring journalist studying at Brigham Young University.

Continued here:
High school student First Amendment support at all-time high - Universe.byu.edu

This article first appeared on the Just Security site.

Theres been substantial discussion in the news over the past week about the specter of a criminal prosecution of Julian Assange arising from his role in facilitating various disclosures of classified national security information, and its potential implications for press freedom in the United States.

Much like the Q&A we did back in February about Michael Flynn and the Logan Act, we thought it would be helpful to flesh out why the Assange case could pose such a troubling precedent for the press, and what the major unanswered questions are.

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Ryan to Steve : Let me start with a softball question before getting to four tougher ones. Why should journalists, as well as others concerned about freedom of the press, care about whether the government decides to prosecute Julian Assange?

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange looks out of the window of the Ecuadorian embassy in central London on February 5, 2016. Ryan Goodman and Steve Vladeck write that a successful Assange prosecution in the U.S. could pose a troubling precedent for the press. NIKLAS HALLE'N/AFP/Getty

Steve to Ryan : Theres a lot to say here. The problem arises from two related but distinct phenomena.

First, the statute getting the most press here is the Espionage Act ( the relevant provision of which is

793 (e)

Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it;

which could theoretically apply to any third party who willfully transmits information relating to the national defense, or even retains it without authorization.

Second, although the First Amendment separately protects the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, the Supreme Court has long refused to give any separate substantive content to the Press Clause above and apart from the Speech Clause.

So if theres a First Amendment defense to the unlawful disclosure of classified national security information, the test (if not its application) should be the same regardless of whether the disclosure is by someone we all agree is a reporter, someone whos actually a foreign agent, or none of the above.

The breadth and concomitant lack of nuance of 793(e), about which Ive written previously, may help to explain why the government has almost never tried to prosecute a third party under that provisionand has instead focused on prosecuting those directly responsible for the unauthorized disclosure of national security information ( e.g. , spies and leakers).

The only attempted prosecution of third parties under 793(e), the 2005 indictment of two AIPAC lobbyists for their role in facilitating the transmission of classified information to Israel, fell apartbut without setting a clear precedent about how the First Amendment would protect unauthorized disclosure of national security information (if at all).

Finally, and turning to the First Amendment question, the Supreme Court has never suggested that the First Amendment might protect a right to disclose national security information.

Yes, the Pentagon Papers case rejected a government effort to enjoin publication, but several of the Justices in their separate opinions specifically suggested that the government could prosecute the New York Times and the Washington Post after publication, under the Espionage Act.

To be sure, the Court has held that, in some circumstances, the First Amendment protects public disclosure of confidential information (and has applied whats known as Pickering balancing to assess when the public interest in disclosure outweighs the governments interest in preserving confidentiality), but even the Bartnicki decision in which the Court ruled that the First Amendment protects a radio stations broadcasting of an unlawfully recorded audio conversationturned to a large degree on the parties stipulation that the radio station itself had acquired the recording lawfully.

Because of the Espionage Act, theres no way for a third party lawfully to acquire classified national security information that they are unauthorized to possess.

So Im skeptical that Assange (or the New York Times , for that matter) would have a clear-cut First Amendment defense to the publication of classified information in anything but the most extreme case of public concern (and perhaps even then).

Thats not to say that there arent incredibly serious First Amendment concerns lurking in the background here; among other things, I have to think that the First Amendment might at least protect a right to publish information on unlawful government programs (which, by law, could not properly be kept secret in the first place), especially where the existence of the program is a matter of significant public concern.

Im just not that sanguine about the prospect of the Supreme Court recognizing a First Amendment right to publish national security secrets in anything but such a compelling case (and wonder, for example, if Snowdens disclosures, at least of the phone records program, would fit the bill).

Simply put, the principal historical constraint on prosecutions of the press for publishing national security secrets has been prosecutorial discretion, not constitutional law.

And so one does not need to have a particular view about Assange (or think that he is or is not a journalist) to have a view on the implications here; the key is if hes prosecuted as a third party under the Espionage Act, which, of itself, would set a dangerous precedent for press freedom.

Ryan to Steve : What if the governments case against Julian Assange is based primarily and lets say for the sake of analysis, exclusively on allegations that he was directly involved in procuring classified information?

For example, imagine if Assange specifically encouraged Chelsea Manning or others to disclose the information. In a Washington Post Op-ed, Jonathan Adler wrote likely many journalists who cover national security have encouraged their sources to obtain and leak secrets, too. Would they also be at risk?

But whats wrong with drawing that line, and telling journalists they can publish classified information that someone hands to them, but they must never be directly involved in encouraging someone with access to classified information to break the law in procuring it?

Steve to Ryan : This is a really important distinction, but the devil is in the details. If the governments claim against Assange is not about publication or retention of national security information, but instead looks more like a solicitation or conspiracy claim (or some other way in which Assange was directly involved in facilitating the original wrongful disclosureand can be charged under an accessory theory for the underlying leak), then that might provide a thin-enough reed on which to rest a prosecution without crossing the line discussed above.

But nuance really matters here; Hollywood depictions to the contrary notwithstanding, most leaks dont involve uncoordinated dead-drops of materials into a journalists mailbox, but are rather the result of careful relationship building and cultivation of sources.

That is to say, its not as obvious as it might seem at first blush that providing technical assistance to Manning is categorically different (in kind, if not degree) from the kind of newsgathering that produces front-page stories derived from national security leaks, for example.

Some readers might react to this as proof that both examples ought to be prosecuted; I dont mean to take a position on that here. My point is just that, unless Assange was even more involved in the underlying theft of materials than weve been led to believe, there are still serious line-drawing problems.

Ryan to Steve : What if the governments case against Julian Assange were based exclusively on materials he disclosed that can be shown to have no public interest whatsoever or any evidence of legal wrongdoing on the part of the government?

Imagine if Assange disclosed US troop locations in Afghanistan. In your view would Assanges action in that case be free speech protected under the First Amendment?

Do you think any of Wikileaks disclosures come close to that line?

Steve to Ryan : Per the above, Im not especially optimistic that, should it come to this point, courts would recognize a First Amendment defense in Assanges case.

But thats why this is potentially such a dangerous precedent: If Assange becomes the first successful prosecution of a third party under the Espionage Act, then that gives the government a whole lot of leverage it might previously have not thought it possessed to be much more aggressive in investigating the medias role in national security leaks.

Yes, its possible to imagine a case in which courts would recognize a First Amendment defense, but by that point the constitutional Rubicon would already have been crossed.

That is to say, the issue is not whether Assange violated the Espionage Act (my own view is that he did), or whether he should have a First Amendment defense. The issue is the precedent it sets for future investigationsand, as such, chillingof even the most responsible and important national security journalism.

Ryan to Steve : If the government in pursuing a case against Assange stipulated that it was only doing so because it could prove that Assange was motivated to harm the United States would that satisfy you?

Should that satisfy First Amendment critics of a Justice Department decision to prosecute Assange?

Steve to Ryan : Motive has never been a critical factor in Espionage Act cases, and for good reason. If the harm from unauthorized disclosure of national security information is the fact that the information is out there, whether the perpetrator has good or bad motives shouldnt affect whether the disclosure is or is not lawful.

Thats why Pickering balancing, insofar as it would apply here, looks instead to the extent to which the speech involves a matter of public concern. So even if the reason for the prosecution was because Assange, unlike, say, Times and Post reporters, was motivated to harm the United States, the law wouldnt careand the precedent would still be set.

Thats why, if youre asking what would satisfy me, the answer would be a theory of criminal liability that wouldnt draw a straight line to what we would all agree is professional journalism.

Ryan to Steve : Where do you draw the legal limit? There is widespread agreement that the Espionage Act is currently drafted in excessively broad terms. But if you were legal counsel to a congressional committee interested in redrafting the Espionage Act, what elements would you suggest could be left in place with low risk of raising a First Amendment problem?

Steve to Ryan : As it turns out, Ive testified (five different times) on this exact subject, including at two different hearings that were specific responses to Wikileaks.

The real problem from a First Amendment perspective is that the statute is old and ambiguousand not drafted with the kind of specificity that usually characterizes speech-restricting statutes that survive constitutional challenge.

Heres how I concluded my testimony at a March 2010 House Judiciary hearing on the Espionage Act and Wikileaks:

First, introduce a clear and precise specific intent requirement that constrains the scope of the Espionage Act to cases where the defendant specifically intends the disclosure to harm national security and/or to benefit a foreign power. . . .

Second, create a separate, lesser offense for unauthorized disclosures and retention of classified information and specifically provide either that such a prohibition does or does not cover the public redistribution of such information, including by the press.

If this Committee and body does decide to include press publication, my own view is that the First Amendment requires the availability of any number of affirmative defenses [including] that the disclosure was in good faith; that the information was improperly classified; that the information was already in the public domain; and/or that the public good resulting from the disclosure outweighs the potential harm to national security.

Third, and finally, include in both the Espionage Act and any new unauthorized disclosure statute an express exemption for any disclosure that is covered by an applicable Federal whistleblower statute.

Ryan Goodman is co-editor-in-chief of Just Security and the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. He served as Special Counsel to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense (2015-16).

Steve Vladeck is co-editor-in-chief of Just Security and a professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law.

See the rest here:
Could Assange Claim a First Amendment Defense? - Newsweek - Newsweek

Last week, federal judge David Hale ruled that Trumps exhortation for the audience at a March 2016 rally in Louisville, Kentucky, to get em [three protesters] out of here could be incitement. That is unusual enough to make headlines, especially because the defendant is Donald Trump. But the real shocker is that last week, the ACLU publicly defended Trump. The ACLU has defended Trump. The ACLU. Donald Trump. Defended.

I am a professor of law at the University of Louisville. I studied constitutional law with Erwin Chemerinsky at the University of Southern California and I received a PhD in Law at Queen Mary University of London. I have previously written on comparative constitutional law, including freedom of expression. And, I have to say, Judge Hales opinion was almost shocking to me. Incitement always seemed to me, from my early days in law school, to be this almost impossible standard that has resulted in a remarkably unchanging doctrine. I havent heard of an incitement argument being accepted by a court in years, if not decades.

That all changed earlier this month. The incitement case against Trump, Nwanguma v. Trump, was filed after three protesterssaidthey werephysically assaulted at a Trump rally. The three protesters, who stated they were at the rally to protest peacefully, were allegedly shoved and punched by rally attendees. The entire exchange was captured on film and widely broadcast in the media. In their lawsuit, the three plaintiffs have alleged that the violence occurred as a result of Trumps command to his audience to get them out of the building. Their claim that Trump incited the crowd is part of their argument that Trumps speech should not be protected by the First Amendment, leaving him open to the rest of their legal claims. [Disclosure: The lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the case against Donald Trump and his supporters has written for Salon.]

What makes the Trump incitement case so unusual is that it concerns political speech, both from the alleged inciter and the victims of the incitement. Political speech, particularly speech at political rallies, is basically the sweet spot for First Amendment protection. You cant get much more in tune with what the Constitution was meant to protect, at least according to the Supreme Court.

So what happens when political speakers collide, literally? On one hand you have the protesters, silently holding signs that insulted or criticized Donald Trump. (Ms. Nwanguma held a poster of Mr. Trumps face transposed on the body of a pig.) This is clearly political, protected speech. On the other hand, you have Donald Trump, a fiery presidential candidate, telling adoring masses about his candidacy and how he wants to make the country better. Again, political speech.

Whom is the First Amendment supposed to protect?

According to Trumps lawyers, Trump did not commit incitement because forcefully ejecting the protesters was not an unlawful act. Why? Because the protesters were trespassing. By conflating property owners and property possessors, Trumps attorneys actually argue that people who come to a public rally can be subjected to violence if the people who are using the space at the time decide that they dont want them there. Somehow, it was the trespassers silently holding signs that were breaching the peace and not the people shoving and grabbing at them.

Another argument made by Trumps lawyers is that when he said get em out of here, he meant to do it nicely. Apparently, Trumps later statement dont hurt them proves his intent was for a calm, peaceful removal of the protesters. Again, this intent is belied by the video of the event as well as Trumps prior statements about protesters. As Judge Hale noted, Trumps dont hurt them was said much more meekly. Compared to his fiery and repeated prior orders to eject the protesters, this statement does nothing to show that Trump was not getting exactly what he wanted when the crowd forcibly ejected the protesters from the building.

Trumps attorneys have also attempted to minimize the impact of Trumps prior statements that advocated violence against protesters, arguing that the plaintiffs identified only three prior speeches that included advocacy of violence against protesters, and no violence occurred then so those speeches dont provide valuable context for the Louisville rally. However, three prior speeches where a presidential candidate specifically approved of violence against protesters who attended his rallies is actually a lot. Certainly a lot more than other presidential candidates, who generally dont advocate violence at all. It is disingenuous to ignore the build-up of highly publicized rhetoric or to act as though Trumps prior statements were not in his fans minds that day. Unsurprisingly, Judge Hale did not agree with any of these assertions.

No, it is the ACLU thathas jumped to Trumps defense after Judge Hale issued his decision. According to Lee Rowland, a staff attorney for the ACLU, although a close call, Trumps speech did not amount to incitement.

Rowland actually agrees that what Trumps supporters did was unlawful because the protesters were not entitled to protest at Trumps privately run rally. As Rowland notes, Trump had the right to tell them to leave. Unfortunately, thats not what Trump did. He didnt talk to the protesters; he spoke to the crowd and told them to eject the protesters. Second, Rowland argues that Trump disavowed violence simply by adding dont hurt them later, noting that Trump also told the crowd I cant say go get em or Ill get in trouble. Judge Hale found that to be evidence that Trump didnt really mean to call off the mob; he just didnt want to be blamed for his own actions. For some reason, the ACLU is a lot kinder to Trump than a federal judge.

The final piece of the ACLUs defense of Trump, and the one that gets deepest into First Amendment cases, is Rowlands argument that Trumps words were not likely to incite violence. To make this argument, Rowland brushes off the claims of one of the assailants who counter-sued Trump by arguing that he did take Trumps words as an order, which he obeyed.

In this Bizarro-World scenario, this bleeding-heart-liberal legal academic has to come out and say something I didnt think I would ever have to say: I think the ACLU is wrong. I think ACLU has misinterpreted the requirements for incitement.

The seminal incitement cases cited in the ACLU blog were decided in the 1960s and 1970s and involved civil rights issues or anti-war protests. Brandenburg v. Ohio involved a filmed speech of a Ku Klux Klan leader burning a cross and giving a speech that denigrated black people and stated that they might need to take revengeance against the government if it continued to suppress the Caucasian race. According to the Supreme Court in Brandenburg, that speech was not incitement because, in order to legally incite a crowd, you cant just be advocating for criminal activity, you have to be preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action.

The other cases cited by the ACLU in its defense of Trump largely say the same thing. Hess v. Indiana (an anti-war protestor who said Well take the fucking streets later) and NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware (civil rights icon Charles Evers, who threatened to break the damn neck of anyone who broke the boycott) both show that threats arent enough. It has to be aimed to produce a response, and an immediate one. Hesss speech wasnt incitement because there was no immediate call to action. Evers speech was also just a threat, and one contingent on someone acting a certain way in the future. Threats, no matter how graphic, do not constitute incitement.

Since then, incitement has been argued in a surprising variety of cases, and almost always unsuccessfully. For example, incitement claims have been unsuccessfully tried against violent video games, giving advice on how to be a successful gang member, and requesting (but not possessing) child pornography. It is not unexpected that these and Im being charitable here creative arguments for incitement did not persuade the courts to expand its reach. In those cases, there was no command to violence and the resulting harm (if any was found) was too temporally removed from the speech.

But there have been some recent cases where a court has allowed a claim of incitement to go forward, and those cases shed some light on what is happening here. A 2009 case, United States v. Stewart, found that a spiritual leaders publicized withdrawal of support for a cease-fire could be seen as a call to arms to his followers to commit violence, placing it in the realm of incitement.

Another 2009 case, United States v. Fulmer, found potential incitement where leaders of an animal rights group used their website and email to urge supporters to participate in [illegal] electronic civil disobedience at a specified time. The defendants were found to have engaged in incitement because they clearly had control over the timing of the illegal virtual sit-ins that clogged websites of targeted companies they stated when a virtual sit-in was to start and, when they announced it had been successful, the virtual sit-in stopped.

Both Stewart and Fulmer show how incitement can be found in modern scenarios, and Trumps speech fits right in. Indeed, Trumps order to get em out of here is a much more explicit call to arms than the statements made in Stewart. The immediacy of his order the implied get them out now makes the harm more imminent than in the case of Fulmer.

And the most damning piece of evidence against Trump, and the ACLUs defense of him, is that his other statements approving of violence against protesters clearly are not incitement. Just looking at two of the most offensive of Trumps statements made at prior rallies shows the difference the legally significant difference between what was said before and what was said in Louisville.

First, at a rally on Feb. 1, 2016, Trump told the crowd [i]f you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them . . . Just knock the hell out of them. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.

Like the speech made by Evers in the Claiborne Hardware case, Trumps words at the February rally were not orders or commands to an audience because they contained a contingency: Act violently only if something specific happens. The contingency is key because it removes the immediacy and the command aspects of the speech. Instead, the speech is just advocacy of potential future violence if certain conditions are met.

At his Feb. 23 rally, which was mere days before the Louisville rally, Trump told the crowd, [h]eres a guy, throwing punches, nasty as hell, screaming at everything else, when were talking. . . Id like to punch him in the face, I tell ya. This statement is even further from incitement. Its a statement of approval of violent action, but it isnt even suggesting that others engage in that behavior.

Thats what makes the Louisville rally so unique. Trump didnt say well get them out or if they dont leave, well take them out. There was no promise of future violence, no contingency upon which violence could occur. He didnt express a desire to inflict violence or say he hoped that someone would get them out. He told his audience to get em out. It was a call to act, to get the protesters out of the building. Immediately. According to the complaint, at the Louisville rally, Trump spoke, knowing that violence was likely to occur as a result of his words. And violence did occur.

Rowlands main point in her article is that we shouldnt allow our distaste of Trump to allow courts to shrink the protections of the First Amendment. To that argument, I would counter that we shouldnt allow our love of the First Amendment to blind us to the fact that a man commanded a room to use force against peaceful protesters. Donald Trumps words dont deserve First Amendment protection, even under the very stringent Brandenburg standard. What he did was precisely why the incitement doctrine was created to stop speech that leads directly to violence. This was not advocacy; it was a call to arms.

With all due respect to the ACLU, what Trump did was textbook incitement. The First Amendment should provide him no safe harbor.

More:
Not covered under the First Amendment: The ACLU is wrong about ... - Salon

TRIGGER WARNING The following column contains opinions that you might not share. Despite all cultural signals, this columnist is going to go ahead and write what he thinks. If you believe theres a chance that the columnist, based on past reading experiences or sheer hunch, might have an alternative opinion to your own, please proceed at your own risk.

People who regularly read newspaper columns dont need that warning, because theyve already signed up for free thought. Others cant handle the terrifying possibility that something that someone writes or says might influence the intricate but delicate worldview theyve carefully constructed in the sterile laboratory of their own minds.

This is why we cant possibly have someone as tall and blond as Ann Coulter saying words at the University of California at Berkeley. While Coulters a cult hero to some on the right, shes not my cup of tea, but Id defend her right to speak anywhere even though I probably wont listen, and Id guess shed defend my right to pen columns shed never read.

This phenomenon is flaring up again just after we stopped hearing about safe spaces where puppets and Play-Doh help college students more than the age of 18 process their icky feelings.

I came across a paper released last week by Jeffrey Herbst, president and CEO of Newseum, about what he considered a crisis on college campuses regarding free expression.

With little comment, an alternate understanding of the First Amendment has emerged among young people that can be called the right to nonoffensive speech, Herbst wrote.

The intentions are good, but although I havent been there yet, Tripadvisor says thats the odd thing about the road surface on the boulevard to Hell.

Many millennials just believe that members of certain groups should be protected from offensive speech.

Thats hardly a radical notion. Its actually quite humane. We can call out others for using offensive slurs wherever we like, on campus, on social media, even in your friendly neighborhood Letters to the Editor pages.

The danger lies in tasking the government with legally determining what can and what cannot be said. If the past two election cycles taught us anything, its that the political pendulum of the government swings mightily, and we should expect the definition of offensive speech to swing with it.

I am among the last of people whod complain about millennials on my lawn playing their loud hip hop cassettes, but there does seem to be some generational peculiarities.

According to a recent Pew Foundation poll, 40 percent of millennials support limiting speech that is offensive to minorities. By contrast, only 27 percent of my nihilist Generation Xers, 24 percent of Baby Boomers and 12 percent of the Silent Generation said that government should limit speech in those circumstances.

College campuses are where minds should be challenged most. This is something that education will have to correct, and while their are generational differences with respect to some speech, I still frequently get confused about calls, emails and letters from people who I guarantee are well past 50 about content they disagree with in the newspaper.

Yes, that political cartoon is, in fact, biased. Thats the definition of a political cartoon and thats why The Family Circus isnt on the Opinion Page. No, I dont necessarily expect you to agree with the person quoted in that story. In fact, the controversy about the subject matter is kind of what made it newsworthy in the first place.

Heres a deep, dark editors secret: I dont agree with everything in the newspaper, and I have something to do with a few things that go into it. I disagree with columns, cartoons, points of view in stories on a daily basis. The same goes for other key newspaper employees. We just dont assume that our opinions are the only ones that matter. If we work for a newspaper, we happen to believe in a free marketplace of ideas.

But a newspaper is different from the government. We edit and self-censor. We dont make a habit of offending minority groups. The difference is that we arent subject to the whim of government regulation. Were allowed to have our own principles and our readers help guide them. We welcome the criticism from readers, but if the government wants to censor us, they can expect a fight.

What we do know is that there is not a homogeneous point of view even in relatively conservative McHenry County. There isnt one on college campuses, no matter how much some colleges might wish for one. And letting bad ideas be heard is the only way people know that theyre bad ideas.

We need to fight this tendency to refuse to hear anything we dont want to hear. Were a better country than this and weve been better by allowing speech to remain free for a few centuries now.

Feel free to disagree. Its your right.

Kevin Lyons is managing editor of the Northwest Herald. Email him at kelyons@shawmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KevinLyonsNWH.

Original post:
From the Editor's Desk: First Amendment can't be just a fad - Northwest Herald