This is Civics 101.

I'm Hannah McCarthy.

This episode first aired back in September of 2020, six months into the pandemic and many

years into challenges to press freedom in the United States.

I made this episode in an attempt to understand what press freedom is to begin with.

What does the Bill of Rights actually do to enshrine a free press in the United States?

And what responsibility do journalists have in this country?

This is Freedom of the Press, part one.

Enjoy.

In the case of course, raises important and difficult problems about the constitutional

right of free speech and of the free press.

June 13, 1971, New York Times subscribers wake up to a story about US entanglement in

Vietnam.

Now at this point, we'd been involved in the Vietnam War for about a decade.

It was the first televised war.

The first time Americans could witness the violence in real time.

And this New York Times article reveals that the Pentagon has done a study into three decades

worth of US involvement with Vietnam.

On Monday, the Attorney General said a telegram to the New York Times asked them to stop

and to return the documents.

The New York Times refused.

Oh, the Pentagon papers.

...