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The Start
A reported by the name of John Peter Zenger wrote several articles that where controversial because he questioned and exposed wrong doings about he British government. He was arrested and his lawyer Alexander Hamilton helped him fight the case and the charges were dropped. -
Virginia's Declaration
The Virginia declaration of rights were adopted, this included freedom of press. It was not blanked over all the states yet, but soon it will become a right for everyone to enjoy. -
Creation
Freedom of Press was published officially in this year. This was excuted by the founding fathers of the United States. James Madison our fourth president was most the most prominent person in its creation. James Madison was a man who like spreading uncensored ideas which played a part in his contributions to The Federalists Papers. The British governed the papers heavily pushing censorship, this all changed after the declaration of independence was created. -
President John Adams
President John Adams did something dangerous which actually caused him to lose an election to Thomas Jefferson. John Adams decided to sign the Alien and sedation Acts. This action was done to try censoring and silencing journalist from publishing articles about his decisions in office. After his term was up his party never recovered. The Federalist never regain the American peoples trust again, no one for their party every won an election again. -
People Vs Croswell
Harry Croswell wrote articles about certain public officials, also including the current President Thomas Jefferson. Croswell was then prosecuted using defamation as the state’s argument. Well, this case was important in the development of the “Freedom of press” because the case ended up having a big factor in the decision of New York adopting the idea that the truth could not be tried as defamation. -
Petty Utah
Utah in this year decided to pass a criminal libel law that allows the prosecution of journalists in the same way John Peter Zenger was in 1735. This started a fire with a lot of other states which are: Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, Montana, New Hampshire, and North Dakota. The main reason for the law is to silence the criticism of public officials. -
Oil and The Paper
Ida Tarbell was a journalist who used her skill to introduce a 19-part series of articles exposing John Rockefeller’s oil company. She spoke on his unethical practices, especially when it came to the treatment of the oil workers. Her truth came from her extensive research which took two years to complete. It was not the creation of investigative journalism, but it was one of the first time for it to get into the spotlight as much as her exposes did. -
So Scandelous
The case Near vs. Minnesota was a case about J. M. Near who wrote articles about scandalous endeavors which included public offciails. The courts used the excuse that Near was making a bad name for Minnesota by publishing articles that were more scandalous then informative. They were trying to say that he was trying to invoke rebellion. Near lost the case because the court did not believe the “Freedom of Press” clause in the first amendment did not protect journalists publishing scandals. -
Martin Luther King jr.
The U. S. Supreme Court case New York Times v. Sullivan was based on the idea journalist cannot just publish articles that don’t have facts to back up the accusations. The case was about an advertisement that criticized the Montgomery, Al police abused their power on Martin Luther King jr. activist. Sullivan Won the case because the advertisement had a lot of errors in the writing. This proved they tried to use white lies to inflate the story and make it bigger then meant to be. -
School Paper
A school has the right to censor the school paper due to the laws in place for education. If the articles are not in line with the educational mission of the school; the principle has the right to veto articles. That’s what happened in the case of Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. The courts proved the paper was not a public forum and cannot be held to the same standard as an adult publication like the New York Times which means the first amendment would not hold for school publication. -
Crystal Cox
Crystal Cox a blogger was sued for defamation because she posted several articles accusing obsidian finance group, LLC of corrupt and fraudulent activity. Cox lost the case because she is not considered a journalist. Cox was ordered to pay 2.5 million dollars in damages to Obsidian finance group, LLC’s reputation. She created a new topic of discussion, is a blogger covered under the first amendment? The short answer is yes, after that case bloggers are now covered.
