For those of you who may have missed (or do not regularly listen to) NPR's "On the Media," you should listen to this week's edition, which contains two excellent segments on journalism and war.
The first details lemmings-to-flame problem inherent in journalism; something the commenters hope is replaced with careful inquiry the next time war appears imminent.
The second is an interview with The Man himself, Daniel Ellsberg, whom I have long admired when I started reporting in undergrad and as I moved on to law school to study the First Amendment in greater depth.
Check it out.
Meanwhile, here's Daniel Schoor in the CSM, commenting on Ellsberg and the First Amendment -- something all of us hold dear, but which is not as protected as some of us believe: [More]
As I relived that First Amendment battle, I could remember the jubilation with which the decision was received in newsrooms around the country. It seemed to be about as unqualified a victory for press freedom as I could remember. Justice Hugo Black wrote in his opinion that "the press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people." Justice William O. Douglas wrote that the injunction constituted "a flouting of the principles of the First Amendment."
But, a generation later, reading through Abrams's narrative, it struck me the Pentagon Papers decision was not as unqualified a victory for the free press as I had thought. What mattered more than the individual opinions of the justices was the per curiam order of the whole court. And that document said the administration had not met the "heavy duty" of demonstrating why prior restraint was justified.
In other words, the court was not making an unqualified statement about the unconstitutionality of prior restraint but asserting that in this case the administration had not made a strong enough case. Another time it might be more successful.
We already know through Save the Internet, for example that they are trying to restrict the Internet, right? And government or big business has tried (and much to their chagrin, failed) to shut down my blawg seven (7) times. We must remain ever vigilant.