First Amendment Bubble

Amy Gajda

ISBN 10: 0674368320 / ISBN 13: 9780674368323

Published by HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Jan 2015, 2015

About this Item

Neuware - For decades, privacy took a back seat to the public¿s right to know. But as the Internet and changing journalism have made it harder to distinguish news from titillation, U.S. courts are showing new resolve in protecting individuals from invasive media scrutiny. As Amy Gajda shows, this judicial backlash is now impinging on mainstream journalists.

Seller Inventory # 9780674368323

Bibliographic Details

• Title: First Amendment Bubble
• Publisher: HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Jan 2015
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674368320
• ISBN 13: 9780674368323
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 241W x 163H x 25D millimeters 241 millimeters width by 163 millimeters height by 25 millimeters depth
• Weight: 590 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In determining the news that’s fit to print, U.S. courts have traditionally declined to second-guess professional journalists. But in an age when news, entertainment, and new media outlets are constantly pushing the envelope of acceptable content, the consensus over press freedoms is eroding. The First Amendment Bubble examines how unbridled media are endangering the constitutional privileges journalists gained in the past century.

For decades, judges have generally affirmed that individual privacy takes a back seat to the public’s right to know. But the growth of the Internet and the resulting market pressures on traditional journalism have made it ever harder to distinguish public from private, news from titillation, journalists from provocateurs. Is a television program that outs criminals or a website that posts salacious videos entitled to First Amendment protections based on newsworthiness? U.S. courts are increasingly inclined to answer no, demonstrating new resolve in protecting individuals from invasive media scrutiny and enforcing their own sense of the proper boundaries of news.

This judicial backlash now extends beyond ethically dubious purveyors of infotainment, to mainstream journalists, who are seeing their ability to investigate crime and corruption curtailed. Yet many―heedless of judicial demands for accountability―continue to push for ever broader constitutional privileges. In so doing, Amy Gajda warns, they may be creating a First Amendment bubble that will rupture in the courts, with disastrous consequences for conventional news.

About the Author

Amy Gajda, a former journalist, is Jeffrey D. Forchelli Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School.