Ep. 87 – Freedom Of The Press (1st Amendment, part 3)

We continue exploring the First Amendment by learning all about Freedom of the Press!

Episode Transcript

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Now this is the FCB Podcast Network, the Great US all to you at
everything, and they thought so WaywardAmerica. Welcome back to the Growing Patriot

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podcast American History for Kids. I'myour host Amelia Hamilton. This week we
continue our dive into the First Amendmentby looking at the third piece, freedom
of the press. Hi, I'mDan McLaughlin. I am a writer for

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National Review magazine, which is amagazine and website, and before that I
was a lawyer in New York Cityfor twenty three years. All right,
so between those two things, youare certainly well versed in freedom of the
press. It is something that weall need to be aware of, absolutely.
So I would love to go rightback to the beginning and why was

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it something that our founders were soaware of and felt like it was important
to protect in the Bill of Rights. Well, freedom of the press is
really part of the freedom of speech. But they wanted to make sure that
it was clear that you didn't justhave a right and a freedom to speak
to talk to people. They wantedto make sure that you had the right

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to write things down and spread themto the whole world. And you know,
at the time of the founding fathers. They didn't have of course radio,
TV, telephones, computers, theydidn't even have the telegraph. So
the way in which people communicated tolarge numbers of people was through the press,
literally the printing and making either newspapersor pamphlets. In fact, not

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even not even books all that much. Most people couldn't afford books at that
time. But they had newspapers andthey had pamphlets, and very often that
was the way to spread news,even to people who couldn't read right,
because the men of that age wouldgather in a tavern and somebody who could
read would read the news aloud fromthe paper, and then the men would
bring the news home to their wivesand children. Wow. And I think

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that that's something that our founders tookadvantage of during during the kind of revolutionary
the colonial and revolutionary period, wasprinted materials that the king wasn't too happy
about. Yeah, I mean BenjaminFranklin was the newspaper man. Thomas Payne
who wrote to Common Sense and otherpamphlets those those were huge best sellers.
I mean Payne his book was oneof the greatest best sellers in American history

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in terms of the number of youknow, compared to the number of people
who were in the country. Sothey used that message, They used that
that medium to spread their message umto other people, you know, against
the king. And then even whenthey were when they were growing up the

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Constitution, they used the newspapers.The Federalist Papers was a series of essays
printed by Madison Hamilton and John Jayin the New York Newspapers to make their
argument for why New York should ratifythe new Constitution. Wow, you mentioned
that there were a lot There weremany fewer ways to get in touch back

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in the in the revolutionary period,back in the eighteenth century than there are
now. So if you do youthink that if if they were to have
looked forward two hundred and fifty issyears and seen Twitter and blogs and podcasts
and everything that we have now,would that have changed their minds about free
speech or freedom of the press.I don't think so. I think they
would have been uncomfortable with some ofwhat's around today. They were uncomfortable with

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some of what was around then.But they recognized that even when the newspapers
mislead people, even when they getthings wrong or sometimes lie, that that's
part of the cost of having freespeech that uh, you know, when
you when you're an adult, partof what you have to learn to do

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is to sometimes read both sides ofthe story and figure out who's telling the
truth. The real landmark case thatled the colonists at the time to think
about freedom of speech seriously was acase of a printer called John Peter Zenger
in seventeen thirty five, so thisis forty years before the Revolution, and

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until Zenger came along, there wasonly one newspaper in New York and it
printed whatever the governor, the royalgovernor who was appointed by the king,
wanted. And then the royal governorfired some people from his administration and they
were or less supported Zenger in comingup with his own newspaper that would be
critical of the governor. He startedby printing things that these other politicians and

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judges didn't like, and then headded his own criticisms. He accused the
governor of bringing elections and kind ofcalled him stupid and corrupt, and so
they took him to court. Theytried to have him thrown in jail,
in fact, for what they calledseditious libel, which you know when we
hear terms like libel, slander,defamation. Those are those still things you

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can be taken to court for todayif you if you actually say something that
is a fact that you know isnot true in the newspapers, you can
have to pay for it. Butit's very hard to prove. In those
days, the king could simply haveyou dragged into court for being critical of
the government, and so Zenger's lawyeror a man named Andrew Hamilton, who

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was no relationship to Alexander. Althoughmy brother is named Andrew Hamilton, well
there we go. I can't speakfor whether he's any relation to you.
But he argued, he argued thatthe jury shouldn't convict Zanger if what he
said was true, and the judgetold them, no, no, that's
not the law under English law.It's still not the law under English law.

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In fact, even to this veryday, they don't have a First
Amendment in Britain like we do.But the jury agreed with Hamilton and they
let Zanger off, and his wifekept the printing presses rolling while he was
locked up, and so by thetime of the Revolution forty years later,

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people remembered the John Peters Anger caseas an example of why they needed a
free press. And so you know, sixteen years after that, when they
wrote the Bill of Rights, andin fact, even when they wrote state
bill of rights in state constitutions,they always included the freedom of speech and
the freedom of the press. Huh. It's interesting. I think one thing

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that people misunderstand about freedom of thepress is they think that disagreement among the
press is something fairly new, sothey think that there need to be more
restrictions. But like you you justmentioned, people have disagreed publicly in the
press for a long time and printedthings that other people didn't want them to
print. But if it's true,you know, people are allowed to read

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both sides and make up their mind. Yeah, there were you know,
there were newspapers when George Washington waspresident that attack Washington claimed that he was
a paid agent of the British.There were newspapers that made all sorts of
horrendous charges against Adams and Jefferson andsome of the founding fathers were involved in
financing those newspapers. So they youknow, they they could be they could

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be rough with each other, butat the end of the day, they
trusted that the readers of the newspaperswould make up their own minds. Yeah.
What are some other things that youthink people might misunderstand about freedom of
the press today. Um, Imean, I think people sometimes don't understand,

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uh, you know, they theydon't understand, for example, that
I think foreigners, for example,don't understand that we have a press that
is allowed to do whatever it wants. Right. One thing, one thing
we don't have is what's called priorrestraint. Right, there's no censorship ahead
of time. Even if even ifa newspaper does something that is very bad,

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the government can't come in and stopthem from running. Um. You
know, I think people sometimes,on the other hand, they they maybe
they don't understand that the press can'talways be trusted, right, and that
that because we have a free press, the press is allowed to say and
do all sorts of things that aren'talways the most responsible things. And again,

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the way you correct that is notto complain that the presses are allowed
to print things. It's to pointout the truth. M Yeah. One
thing that that listeners have definitely heardme talk about before as well is source
documents. And sometimes you need toget right to right to the source and
see if what the what the newspaperis saying, or what a YouTuber or

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someone on Twitter is saying, isreally is that really what happened? And
you have to go go right tothe source and find out. You have
to ask, you know, whensomebody says something, how do they know
this? If it sounds like somethingthat is just telling you what somebody else
is thinking, maybe maybe they don'thave a source inside that person's head.
But you know, when the when, the when the newspapers or the radio

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or TV or whoever are reporting outsomething that happened in a court decision or
a public document, you can gocheck yep, yep. I know.
One of the most important things Idid when I was in college was our
teachers had us look at I did. I had a degree in history,
so they had us look at historicalnewspapers and we had to or sometimes it
was letters, and we would lookat who wrote it, who they were

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writing it too, and when,and then we would have to write an
essay about why we should trust itor not trust it. And that was
it was such a good way tothink about these things that you know,
it's important for everyone to think aboutabout what they read and what they hear
that way. Yeah, it wasalso a history major. I actually had
a teacher in high school who oncegave a lesson for a couple of days

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straight of just completely made up nonsense. And he did this because he wanted
his students. It's an important thingto learn in high school that you don't
just trust anything that anybody tells you, you know, even if that person
is a person in position of authority. You have to learn to check things
for yourself. Yeah. Absolutely.So when you were leaving your your lawyer

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life behind and becoming a writer,do you think that if freedom of the
press didn't exist, is that achoice that you would have made or how
has that changed your life? Oh? No, yeah, I mean I
wouldn't be doing this. I was, I was right while I was a
lawyer for for a long time,but not you know, as my main
job. Um. But uh,it's enormously important to be able to it's

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it's it's it would not be avery satisfying job to be writing uh in
public. Uh if if you feltyou couldn't tell the truth, you weren't
free to speak your mind. Um. And uh, you know that's something
that's been very hard for writers incountries that don't have free press in countries

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that don't have free speech. Uh. And and there were you know,
for many years in in uh dictatorships, there have been you know, writers
who had to secretly smuggle their theirreal thoughts uh in the underground press somewhere
because they couldn't publish them. Yeah, it's important to remember how much bravery

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is required for a lot of alot of writers and a lot of people
working in the news around the world. And I think we can take that
for granted a little bit here,but but that's an important and important thing
to remember. Yeah, and evenyou know, even when you have a
free press, you have to bebrave enough to say what's true and what
you believe, even if other peopleare going to criticize you, because guess

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what that comes with the territory too, it does and that and that brings
us back to free speech. Thatwe're allowed to allowed to say our opinions
and print that. But sometimes peoplesay nasty things in response, and they're
allowed to do that too. Andthat's that's that's why, you know,
when when Americans get asked about that, they often say, it's a free
country and it's it's good to remindyourself what that really means. Yeah,

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So, what are some of theways that we can protect freedom of the
press and make sure that you know, for future generations, we you know,
we can we can rely on that. Well, I think it starts
with, um, you know,accepting the idea at when you're in school,
when you're in at work, thatif somebody says something you disagree with

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that you know, you, onthe one hand, have the courage to
stand up and disagree with them.But on the other hand, don't you
know, don't get upset and throwa big tantrum that somebody is saying something
that you don't like, even somethingthat hurts your feelings. Sometimes you just
have to say, Okay, youknow that's that's wrong, and here's why
it's wrong. Um. And Sothat the value of a free free press

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and free speech, uh, youknow, it starts with all of us.
It's not just the government's job,um, you know. And and
and so there's there's a value tothat. Um. And and I think
you know, read read things,uh, and and even sometimes pay for
them, because the free press doesn'texist if if nobody's buying newspapers or magazines

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or subscribing to websites or all ofthe different things that that. You know,
it costs money to make newspapers,It costs money to put things on
TV, so uh, you knowsometimes you have to pay for that.
Yeah. And I think it's importantto read and listen to things that we
don't agree with sometimes, because that'sthat's how you get both sides of the

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story, you know, And that'sa yeah. It's how you hear things
you might be missing, and it'salso how you develop the skill of listening
critically and saying, wait a minute. It's not just that I'm hearing something
I disagree with and I get angry. It's that you have to think about,
Okay, why is that wrong?And how do I prove to somebody

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who might be hearing it and mightnot know if it's true or not.
How do I prove to them thatthat's wrong. Yeah, And that's not
to say that there are no limitsthough, on freedom of the press.
I know you mentioned libel earlier,So what are some of those limits?
Yeah? Well, so the lawas it is today mostly is that you

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know, if if say, anewspaper publishes a fact about somebody, not
just an opinion, not an opinion, not that they use mean work,
but they say, you know,uh, so and so, you know
rob this bank on April tenth.Uh and so and so didn't rob the
bank. Uh and has never robbeda bank, and you've just done a

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very bad thing to that person's reputation. Then that person can suit. They
can file a lawsuit. Um.And sometimes there are also uh and a
lawsuit meaning that that they can youknow, they can claim money from you.
They don't go to jail for that. Um. Sometimes there are other
limits on the press uh, particularlyif say a newspaper steals something and then

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prints it. The government can't stopthem, but sometimes they can punish them
for stealing it if they can,you know, catch how they did it.
So there are examples like that.It's not it's not completely free,
just as most of our freedoms arenot completely free. But it's a very
very strong protection that we have inthe law that it's it's very hard to

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hold newspapers, magazines, TV stations, etc. Responsible for that. Yeah,
and it's a lot about protecting theother person's rights too. You know,
the print newspapers can print something aslong as it's not a lie.
That you know, infringes on someoneelse's rights. So it's really love about
protecting people. Yeah, there wasa very very publicized case recently involving a

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TV station that they put people onthe air to talk about, you know,
whether whether an election was rigged,very much like in John Peters Anger's
day, and they're allowed to dothat. What they weren't allowed to do
and got them in trouble and endedup paying money, was because they accused
a particular voting machine company of readingthe votes and they didn't have proof for

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that. You can't do that,because that's then you're not just talking about
the government. You're actually saying thisparticular business, who is in the job
of running honest elections was fixing them. Um. And you know, if
you're going to accuse somebody like thatof something like that, you have to
have proof. Yep. And likeyou said, opinions are a different thing.

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If they had an opinion about something, that's one thing. But but
accusing someone of doing something very wrong, you better you better have the evidence
to back it up. And that'syou know, that's that's what that's what
I do as a writer, andthat's what what I did as a lawyer.
That's what lawyers do, is islearning that you have to be able
to not just say things, butshow you know, what your proof is,

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what your evidence is. Yeah,all right, well I think this
was a great overview of freedom ofthe press. Um. What what is
kind of one thing that we canall keep in mind when we're when we're
engaging with the press in the future, whether we're reading something or watching listening.
I think it really is just toappreciate that, uh, you know,

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the press gets to say what theywant, um, but we don't
have to believe it. Uh,you know, we should always be trying
to hear more than one voice andmake sure that we're listening to somebody who's
who's going to tell us the truth. And there we have it. All

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about freedom of the press. It'ssuch an important piece of freedom of speech
and something that affects us every singleday, whether we realize it or not.
Thank you so much for listening,and remember you can find us on
Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook atGrowing Patriots and you can find the Growing
Patriot books and more information at growingpatriots dot com. Can't wait to see

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you next time. The Great USall forty everything and they thought so we
America. This has been a presentationof the FCB podcast Network, where real

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talk lifts. Visit us online atFCB podcasts dot com.