Press Freedom and Citizens' Right to Know in the 1960s

Abstract

Samuel T. Ragan, along with other leaders in professional press organizations, crusaded to protect press freedom and citizens' rights to access criminal justice information in the 1960s. The editors portrayed the 1964 President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy report as kindling for an age-old debate over free press and fair trial rights. The U.S. Supreme Court's 1966 Sheppard v. Maxwell ruling further fueled that debate by indicating that press coverage could undermine criminal defendants' fair trial rights. Between 1964 and 1968, Ragan and his colleagues attempted to present press freedom as a means to protect citizens' rights to receive fair trials and to receive information about government activities. Those editors presented press freedom as a fundamental means to keep government actors from abusing their power and a fundamental means to preserve citizens' abilities to be informed in a democracy.