Freedom of the Press: Part 1

Civics 101

NHPR

Education, History, Supreme Court, American History, Elections, Democracy, Society & Culture, Government, Civics, Politics, Social Studies

4.6 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2020

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The only working-class job enshrined in the Bill of Rights, a free press is essential to the health of the democracy. The citizens deserve to know what’s going on, so the framers made sure that news could be printed and information disseminated. But how does the press actually do that? Are they upholding their end of the bargain? What does the best version of the press and the news look like?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The case, of course, raises important and difficult problems about the constitutional right
0:09.6	of the free space and of the free press.
0:16.0	June 13, 1971, New York Times subscribers wake up to a story about US entanglement in
0:22.4	Vietnam.
0:23.4	Now, at this point, we've been involved in the Vietnam War for about a decade.
0:27.4	It was the first televised war.
0:29.5	The first time Americans could witness the violence in real time.
0:42.2	And this New York Times article reveals that the Pentagon has done a study into three
0:46.8	decades worth of US involvement with Vietnam.
0:49.8	On Monday, the Attorney General said a telegram to the New York Times asked them to stop
0:55.2	and to return the documents.
0:57.9	Oh, the Pentagon papers.
1:01.7	Yeah, the infamous Pentagon papers, which revealed that the executive branch had lied to
1:07.6	both Congress and the American people about the extent of its involvement in Southeast Asia.
1:13.2	The report was leaked and the New York Times wrote about it and published some of its
1:17.1	contents.
1:18.1	The Attorney General is like, you can't do that.
1:20.6	You have to give those papers back and stop writing about them.
1:24.3	And the Times said, no.
1:25.8	And on Tuesday, the United States started this suit.
1:31.2	You're listening to Civics 101.
1:32.8	I'm Hannah McCarthy.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NHPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NHPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.