American Journalism
and Freedom of the Press

Where to find the readings:

= Firestone Book Reserve. = University Store
= World Wide Web. = Firestone Electronic Reserve and/or course packet

Part I. The Historical Development of a Free Press

February 4. Introduction.

Anthony Lewis, Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment (New York: Random House, 1991), pp. 1-152.

February 11. The origins and meaning of the First Amendment

Leonard Levy, Emergence of a Free Press (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 3-117, 173-219.
David A. Anderson, "The Origins of the Press Clause, " U.C.L.A. Law Review 30 (February 1983), 455-541.
Kent Middleton et al., The Law of Public Communication (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1997 or later), Ch. 2: The First Amendment.

February 18. Rise of the popular press

Stephen Botein, " Printers and the American Revolution, " in Bernard Bailyn and John B. Hench, eds., The Press & the American Revolution (Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1980), pp. 11-57.
Michael Schudson, Discovering the News (New York: Basic Books, 1978), pp. 3-120.
Jean K. Chalaby, “Journalism as an Anglo-American Invention: A Comparison of the Development of French and Anglo-American Journalism, 1830s-1920s,” European Journal of Communications (1996), 11: 303-326.

February 25. The press and the First Amendment in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries

David M. Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 1-9, 342-380.
Lewis, Make No Law, pp. 153-163; 183-248. [Note: review earlier assigned pages.]
Marjorie Heins, Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), Introduction, Chs. 1-2.

March 4. Broadcasting and the First Amendment

Lucas A. Powe, Jr., American Broadcasting and the First Amendment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 1-45, 197-215.
Heins, Not in Front of the Children, Ch. 4.
Middleton et al., The Law of Public Communication, Ch. 12: Regulation of Broadcasting.

March 11. The First Amendment and the New Media

Ithiel de Sola Pool,Technologies of Freedom (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 1-10.
Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union
Heins, Not in Front of the Children, Ch. 7-9.
Geoffrey Nunberg, "The Internet Filter Farce" The American Prospect (January 1-15, 2001), 24-28.
Middleton et al., The Law of Public Communication, Ch. 13: Regulation of Cable Television, Telephone, and New Electronic Media..

March 11-13. Take-home midterm.

March 25. The future of free expression

Cass R. Sunstein, " A New Deal for Speech," in David S. Allen and Robert Jensen, Freeing the First Amendment (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 54-78.
Frederick Schauer, "First Amendment Opportunism," in Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone, eds., Eternally Vigilant (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 174-97.
Jeff Chester and Gary O. Larson, "End of the Open Road?" The American Prospect (January 17, 2001), 42-45.

Part II. Journalism and Freedom of the Press: Currrent Controversies

April 1. Individual meetings with students about research projects.

April 8. Privacy, libel and the First Amendment. Postponed to May 6. (see below)

April 15.Student presentations

Commercial interests and access to the media
Middleton et al., The Law of Public Communication, Ch. 6: Corporate Speech, and Ch. 7: Advertising.


Campaign finance reform and the First Amendment
Paul Starr, "The Loophole We Can't Close," The American Prospect (January-February 1998), pp. 6-9.
Coming: Court briefs in pending Supreme Court case on constitutionality of McCain-Feingold

April 22. Student presentations

Indecency, obscenity, and the First Amendment
Middleton et al, The Law of Public Communication, Ch.8: Obscenity.

April 29. Student presentations

Violent speech, hate speech, and "political correctness"
Cass R. Sunstein, "Is Violent Speech a Right?" The American Prospect no. 22 (Summer 1995), pp. 34-37.


War, terrorism, and freedom of the press
William H. Rehnquist, All the Laws But One: Civil Liberties in Wartime (New York : Knopf, 1998), 75-104, 118-37, 218-225.

May 6. Student presentations

Privacy versus the First Amendment.
Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, "The Right of Privacy," Harvard Law Review 4 (1890), 191-220.
Middleton et al, The Law of Public Communication, Ch. 4: Privacy and Personal Security.


Scandal! Sensationalism, libel, and the growth of tabloid news and entertainment.


Middleton et al., The Law of Public Communication, Ch. 3: Libel [mostly review].