Word: opinionated
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Long before he began work on this week's cover story on G. William Miller, George Taber, our Washington economic correspondent, had collected some intriguing gossip and opinion about the unbankerly new Federal Reserve Board chief. Most of it squared with the impression that Taber had got during his first meeting with Miller, just after he took office in March. "It was disarming," he recalls. "He was running around the solemn corridors of the Fed with his coat off, tossing out ideas on fighting inflation and otherwise behaving unlike the typical wary central banker...
...from enjoying any special free-speech privilege, broadcasting comes under special restrictions, and the court emphatically affirmed this on its final day last week. In the so-called "seven-dirty-words case," the four Nixon appointees voted together to support an opinion by Stevens. In the 5-to-4 ruling, Stevens said that the Federal Communications Commission could admonish a radio station for airing "patently offensive" language, even if that language would be protected in another medium as less than "legally" obscene. The "uniquely pervasive presence" of broadcasting justifies such regulation, said Stevens, who tried to narrow the ruling...
...another case, a somewhat petulant opinion by Chief Justice Burger declared that the press had no more free-speech rights than anyone else. The outburst caused many to wonder if Burger did not have a personal peeve against the press. "There is a certain undertone of resentment against the press, a sort of 'Who do they think they are?' feeling among a few Justices," remarked Michigan's Blasi. But he warned against overplaying the court as antipress. Like other First Amendment experts, Blasi points to a little-noticed unanimous decision striking down criminal sanctions against a newspaper...
...protect practical needs of the press in specific circumstances. But other Justices tend to rely on their own intuitive judgments about whether a given ruling will "chill" press freedom. "In the Stanford Daily case," notes Columbia Law Professor Benno Schmidt, "Justice White [who wrote the majority opinion] just doesn't believe that sources will dry up." Notes Gunther: "There is a great deal of misunderstanding and suspicion between press and court. Both sides are at fault...
Optimistically, Miller sees signs that opinion is swinging his way. Says he: "The cynicism and divisiveness and skepticism of the past seem to be fading. We are starting to see that we do have a common enemy: inflation. Now we are beginning to see people saying, 'We don't want any more Government ?and I'll have to give up my pet project too.' I don't think there could be a nicer tune in anyone's life than when you have everyone coming to a common understanding...