Free press, corporate style

Abstract

The values embodied in the U.S. Constitution by the First Amendment's free speech and press clauses are often personified in less abstract images: the brusque newspaper editor fighting prejudice or corruption; the labor organizer rallying workers against their exploiters; citizens massing together to protest injustices and to sway public opinion. These images reflect the individualist ethic that has dominated U.S. politics since the country's founding. On occasion, these images pit the hero against corporate greed, but the government is more often the villain in the popular imagination. The individualistic distrust of governmental power resonates on both the left and the right of the political spectrum. Because the U.S. is a legalistic society, this individualist ethic has inevitably been translated into legal doctrine. Thus, the First Amendment has come to be regarded as a formidable constitutional barrier to governmental interference with individual self‐expression. Since the 1960s and the height of the...