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United States Constitution: Amendment 1. The Press

The Constitution Explained

Freedom of the Press

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
Terms
  • "Actual malice": False or reckless disregard of whether it was false or reckless." (Monk, 2015, p.152)
  • Confidentiality: The ability to keep sources' names confidential.
  • Fourth Estate: Refers to the press and the news media.
  • Libel: Defaming someone in print.
  • Nonprint media: Broadcasting receives limited protection. 
  • Prior Restraint: Censorship of a pre-published work.
  • Shield law: Law that protects certain categories of people from revelation.
  • Source: Someone revealing vital information.
  • Yellow journalism: Journalism that relies on "sensationalism and lurid exaggeration to attract readers."

Some important freedom of the press rulings.

Source: The Bill of Rights: A User's Guide

Satire

What is Satire?

Merriam-Webster defines satire as:
1.a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn.
2: trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly.

According to James L. Walker of the First Amendment Encyclopedia, satire is protected speech.

10 Satirical Novels
  1. Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
  2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  3. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
  4. No Way to Treat a First Lady by Christopher Buckley
  5. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  6. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
  7. The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek
  8. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  9. Animal Farm by George Orwell
  10. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells, Journalist and Publisher
Advocate for a Free Press
Public Domain

Other Famous Newspaper and News Magazine Publishers

10 Satirical Movies

  1. Cabin in the Woods (2011)
  2. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
  3. Inglorious Basterds (2009)
  4. M.A.S.H. ( 1970)
  5. Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
  6. Network (1976)
  7. The Stepford Wives (1975)
  8. This is Spinal Tap: A Rockumentary (1984)
  9. The Truman Show (1998)

Satire in Other Media

  1. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (TV)
  2. The Daily Show (TV)
  3. Get Smart (TV)
  4. In Living Color (TV)
  5. Mad Magazine (Magazine)
  6. The National Lampoon (Magazine)
  7. The Onion (Magazine & Website)
  8. Saturday Night Live (TV)
  9. South Park (TV)

Movies about the Press

Books about the Press

Additional References

Monk, L. R. & Ginsburg, R. B. (2018). The Bill of Rights: a user's guide. Hachette Books. 
Monk, L. R. (2015). The words we live by: your annotated guide to the Constitution. Hachette Books. 
Walker, J. L. (n.d.). Satire. https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1015/satire.