Word: press
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...press is not too powerful; if anything, it is not powerful enough. Those who want to curb the press point out that it is no longer the "fragile" thing it was when the First Amendment was written. But neither is the Government. When Franklin Roosevelt took office, the federal budget, in 1979 dollars, amounted to about $38 billion. In fiscal 1980, it will be around $530 billion. When Roosevelt took office, the federal bureaucracy consisted of 600,000 people. Today it adds up to 2,858,344. Such figures can only suggest that the growth of Government has been...
...fact that the press is not accountable to any other power except the marketplace clearly agitates a lot of people. This often takes the form of the hostile question to editors: Who elected you anyway? But some institutions in our society simply should not be subject to the usual political processes. As for the courts, whatever their intentions may be, they are not the place to cure the undeniable failings of the press...
...American journalist enjoys unusual latitude and he must, therefore, bear unusual responsibility. He must expect a certain rough-and-tumble in his trade, and not wrap himself in the Constitution at every setback. By no means were all recent court rulings unmitigated disasters. The court in effect allows the press to print anything it can get its hands on. When the Supreme Court held that a newsman's state of mind and his preparations for a story were legitimate subjects of inquiry, this evoked visions of thought police; and yet it was only a consequence of an earlier...
...serious journalist questions the need to balance the rights of a free press against other rights in society, including the rights of defendants. But the degree of balance is what counts, and the balance is tilting against the press. As a result, a backlash against the courts has begun in Congress, with the introduction of many bills designed to shore up the rights of journalists. That is a mixed blessing. Spelling out rights that were assumed to exist under the general protection of the First Amendment may very well result in limiting those rights. Most of the press would much...
Perhaps it is not too late for judges to restore some balance and to discover that they do share with the press certain common interests, if not a common fate. As New York's Irving R. Kaufman, Chief Judge of the Second Judicial Circuit, has written: "Different as the press and the federal judiciary are, they share one distinctive characteristic: both sustain democracy, not because they are responsible to any branch of Government, but precisely because, except in the most extreme cases, they are not accountable at all. Thus they are able to check the irresponsibility of those...