Freedom of the Press, Part 1

Civics 101

NHPR

Society & Culture, Government, History

4.2 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2022

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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? Helping us report this one out are Melissa Wasser, Michael Luo and Erin Coyle. This episode originally aired in September of 2020. CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more! To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro. Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Civics 101.
0:02.9	I'm Hannah McCarthy.
0:04.6	This episode first aired back in September of 2020, six months into the pandemic and many
0:10.2	years into challenges to press freedom in the United States.
0:14.1	I made this episode in an attempt to understand what press freedom is to begin with.
0:20.3	What does the Bill of Rights actually do to enshrine a free press in the United States?
0:25.8	And what responsibility do journalists have in this country?
0:29.9	This is Freedom of the Press, part one.
0:32.7	Enjoy.
0:33.7	In the case of course, raises important and difficult problems about the constitutional
0:43.0	right of free speech and of the free press.
0:49.6	June 13, 1971, New York Times subscribers wake up to a story about US entanglement in
0:56.2	Vietnam.
0:57.8	Now at this point, we'd been involved in the Vietnam War for about a decade.
1:01.3	It was the first televised war.
1:03.3	The first time Americans could witness the violence in real time.
1:16.0	And this New York Times article reveals that the Pentagon has done a study into three decades
1:21.1	worth of US involvement with Vietnam.
1:23.5	On Monday, the Attorney General said a telegram to the New York Times asked them to stop
1:29.0	and to return the documents.
1:30.7	The New York Times refused.
1:33.2	Oh, the Pentagon papers.
	...

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