Bruce Frassinelli bfrassinelli@ptd.net
The Importance of Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech While we don’t see incidents in the United States like the one in Paris involving the Charlie Hebdo newspaper, there have been plenty of examples of intimidation that have resulted in injury, even death, to journalists and editors who dared to publish controversial stories or photos.
BRUCE FRASSINELLI is the former publisher of The Palladium-Times and an adjunct online instructor at SUNY Oswego. You can contact him at bfrassinelli@ ptd.net. 60
T
he bloody rampage in Paris early the pope is a closet atheist, your remarks are this year that left 17 persons dead protected. and nearly two dozen wounded was Granted, this will not protect you from triggered around a satirical cartoon of the community scorn or of others exercising their prophet Mohammed that appeared in an right of free speech to tell you what they think irreverent publication of you, but it’s an extreme called Charlie Hebdo. example of the freedoms My Turn In a bold move of we have and, largely, take defiance, the newspafor granted. per’s next edition published another carThere have been thousands of cartoons toon showing a weeping Mohammed. The satirizing and lambasting the president, the original plan to print three million copies leaders of Congress, the pope and other notawas bumped up to five million, and all sold bles. There have been thousands of columns out in an hour, with people waiting in long where these same persons have been savaged lines to buy the “keepsake,” and, in the pro- in print or in blogs. cess, thumbing their noses at the terrorists. Despite the cutting nature of the comDespite the fact that nine of their colmentary, you do not expect to see the columleagues were killed in a hail of bullets at a nist or author executed by one of the notables’ staff meeting at the newspaper office, the defenders or hauled off to jail by federal surviving journalists refused to be intimiofficials. dated. In two key phrases within 45 words, the While we don’t see incidents of this framers of the Constitution established the magnitude in the United States, there have press as the only business in America that been plenty of examples of intimidation is sheltered from government intervention. that have resulted in injury, even death, to Unlike the broadcast media, controlled by the journalists and editors who dared to pubFederal Communications Commission, no lish controversial stories or photos. federal agency regulates or licenses the print When confronted with such a heinous media. and murderous rampage as we saw in If Palladium-Times Publisher Jon SpauldParis, it should give us an idea of how iming wanted to put the f-word on the front portant freedom of the press and freedom page of the paper — I assure you he never of speech are. Some may not even process would — there is no law that says he can’t, what the terms mean. Sure, they are two and there is no prior restraint to prevent its of the fundamental guarantees in the First publication. Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but Why did the founders take this daring what do they really mean to lay people? step? As a citizen, you have a right to express They wanted to ensure that Americans your views on just about anything, and, rewould enjoy the free flow of ideas; would be gardless of how outrageous or ill-tempered free to examine the quality of their instituthey are, the government won’t come to tions and those who serve them; to say freely arrest you. Now, granted, these are not abwhat they think; to read and write about solute rights. If you threaten to kill someone government; and to publish information and or announce you are going to blow up the critiques without hindrance or official interWhite House, you are breaking the law, and ference. you will be prosecuted. The brilliance of the First Amendment But if you proclaim that President is at once awesome and wondrous. With the Barack Obama is an idiot, that the mayor stroke of a pen, it created an open society, one of your community is an incompetent, that that places its faith in free speech and in a OSWEGO COUNTY BUSINESS
APRIL / MAY 2015