Word: courtly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Branzburg vs. Hayes (1972). A reporter has no right to withhold information about his sources from a grand jury in a criminal investigation. The court was unmoved by the contention that confidential sources will dry up if reporters can be compelled to reveal them...
...wasteful by a U.S. Senator, a former Government translator who had been cited for contempt for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Soviet espionage, and a prominent Florida socialite embroiled in a highly publicized divorce were all held not to be "public figures" as libel plaintiffs. The court ruled that someone must "thrust" himself into a prominent public controversy in order to become a public figure. In effect, these decisions made it easier to sue for libel...
...court this term refused to hear the appeal of New York Times Reporter Myron Farber, who spent 40 days in jail for contempt for refusing to turn over to the defendant his notes at a murder trial. And it refused to review a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that allowed Government investigators access to the telephone company's records of phone numbers called by journalists. Both cases, along with Branzburg, make it more difficult for reporters to preserve the confidentiality of sources...
...Burger Court's record is not entirely adverse to the press. The court has repeatedly ruled that the First Amendment protects the press from "prior restraint,"-that is, from laws or court rulings that prevent the press from publishing what it knows. Thus the court allowed the press to publish the Pentagon papers in 1971, despite claims by the Government of national security; unanimously (7-0) struck down a Virginia statute last year that penalized newspapers for revealing secret disciplinary proceedings against a judge; and forbade courts in 1976 to "gag" the press to keep it from printing information...
...process of gathering news enjoys considerably less First Amendment protection from the Burger Court than does printing news once it is gathered. The court is highly protective of competing individual rights, such as a person's right to a fair trial or his right to protect his reputation and privacy...