By happy coincidence rather than clever planning, the Winter 2013 issue of Gateway Journalism Review is filled with stories about the full range of First Amendment issues in the news. This focus on free speech is fitting, because GJR just celebrated the First Amendment at its annual fundraiser in St. Louis.
I remember sitting with others lucky enough to hear oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in the fall of 1987. It was an important case about educating young citizens, and the first that the court heard dealing with a high school newspaper. I also knew it mattered because the student newspaper is the voice
“Absence of accountability, leads to an absence of credibility,” said John Seigenthaler Thursday evening at the First Amendment Celebration hosted by St. Louis and Gateway Journalism Review supporters. Seigenthaler, a longtime advocate and activist for free speech, stressed the importance of traditional journalism values in the digital age.
Illinois’ toughest in the nation eavesdropping law is partly unenforceable now that a Chicago prosecutor failed to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to revive the law. Citizens now can make an audio tape of Chicago police making a stop without fear of prosecution. The taping of police stops is part of an ACLU of Illinois
Venturing into a new frontier of First Amendment law, the Supreme Court gave constitutional protection to those seeking to use the vast stores of data and information collected by modern information technology. The court ruled 6-3 that Vermont could not stop pharmaceutical companies from obtaining data on doctors’ prescription-writing practices – data the companies used
