Media

Hazelwood reverberates 25 years later

Twenty-five years ago, on Jan. 13, 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court announced a devastating blow to student speech and the student press when it validated the authority of the principal of Hazelwood East High School to remove controversial stories about teen pregnancy and divorce from the school newspaper over student objections. The court’s decision in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier was one of the most far-reaching decisions restricting free speech in the past quarter-century.

Media

Press can do better than knee-jerk response on White House memo

Maybe my kids are right and I’m getting more conservative as I get older. Maybe my ACLU buddies have reason to wonder if I’ve strayed from the path of founder Roger Baldwin. Or maybe it’s been too many years since I was in the White House press room. But as I listened this week to the White House press briefing, I was irritated by the press’ attitude that President Obama’s decision to kill any American citizens plotting attacks on the United States was comparable to President George W. Bush’s authorization of the torture of captured al-Qaida operatives.

Media

Newspaper projects generate totally different reader responses

The end of December is the season for newspapers to unveil big projects aimed at changing public policy – and, not incidentally, winning prizes. (I know. I’ve done it.) This year, the Kansas City Star printed an unappetizing but provocative series on meat production showing that modern industry methods may be harmful for people’s health. Across the state, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a series on pedestrians killed on railroad tracks and what it saw at the weak industry response. The reader reaction was quite different.