Blog Post #4

 

First Amendment: Freedom of the Press

The constitution when defining the first amendment states the following: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." This means that when it comes to issues of religion, speech, peaceful assembly, petitioning the government or the press, the government cannot interfere in such a way that would violate said rights. and while many would think that it would be easy for the government to avoid interfering with the rights of citizens we tend to see it more than we should. especially when it comes to the freedom of the press.

This issue of government interference with the freedom of the press was seen recently during the presidency of the 45th president, Donald J. Trump. According to an article written by Sally Gimson entitled US media freedom fraying at the edges, there was a lot of attention drawn to the issue because of Trumps frequent and public bouts with members of the press during his conferences and his "slanderous" comments about certain news outlets that did not cover him as well as he wanted which he often dubbed as "fake news". A New York Times article (

Trump Renews Pledge to ‘Take a Strong Look’ at Libel Laws) discusses how Former President Trump wanted to make it easier for people to sue organizations for cases of "defamation" the former leader also proceeded to call the country's libel laws a "sham" and during this same period of time, his own lawyer filed a lawsuit against major news outlet, Buzzfeed. This obsession with the nation's libel laws began after Trumps team caught wind of the White House's negative looks in a book that was set to be published and released by Michael Wolfe. The ACLU slammed Trump's claims and confirmed that what he was trying to do was not only not credible but unconstitutional.

If the first amendment in our bill of rights is said to "guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely." then that is exactly what it should do and we should had our govenement officials accountable for upholding that right.