Text 31: mass media in a democratic society

Today more homes in the United States have television than a toilet. The average adult watches TV three hours each day, and the average child — four. By the time most American youths graduate from high school, they will have spent more time in front of the television than in class. In addition, Americans average 18 hours per week listening to radio, 3.5 hours per week reading newspapers, and almost 2 hours each week reading magazines. Truly, Americans live in a media age; but what are they learning about their government and politics?

Unless a citizen is actually in the White House, on the floor of a state legislature he or she cannot experience directly what is happening. Citizens today know the political world largely through the pictures, words, and expressions the mass media communicate to them. In reality, politics and the mass media have become inseparable. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell explained the importance of the mass media for citizens in a democracy. He argued that an informed public depends upon accurate and effective reporting by the news media. No individual can obtain for himself the information needed for the intelligent discharge of his political responsibilities. For most citizens the prospect of personal familiarity with newsworthy events is hopelessly unrealistic. In seeking out the news the press therefore acts as an agent of the public at large. It is the means by which the people receive that free flow of information and ideas essential to intelligent self-government.

Thus, the mass media have come to influence American government and politics in ways that politicians from the last century, let alone the Founders of the Constitution, could never have predicted.

Text 32: the pentagon papers*

In many nations prior restraint — censorship of information before it is published — is a common way for government to control information and limit freedom. In the United States, however, the Supreme Court has ruled that the press may be censored in advance only in cases relating directly to national security. The following Supreme Court decision illustrates this principle.

In The Pentagon Papers Case the Supreme Court reaffirmed its position. In 1971 a Pentagon employee leaked to The New York Times a secret government report outlining the history of United States involvement in the Vietnam War. This report, which became known as the Pentagon Papers, contained hundreds of government documents, many of them secret cables, memos, and plans.

Realizing the Pentagon Papers showed that former government officials had lied to the American people about the war, The New York Times began to publish parts of the report. The government tried to stop further publication of the papers, arguing that national security would be endangered and that the documents had been stolen from the Defense Department.

A divided Court rejected the government's claims. The Court ruled that stopping publication would be prior restraint. Writing on behalf of the majority, Justice William Douglas noted that "the dominant purpose of the First Amendment to the Constitution declaring the freedom of the press was to prohibit the widespread practice of governmental suppression of embarrassing information." He added: "The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. . . . The press is to serve the governed and not the governors."

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* Pentagon Papers — ucm. Документы Пентагона – Секретное исследование предыстории участия США в войне во Вьетнаме