Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is
Speaker 1: stuff you should know constitutional uh Professor's edition. All right.
Speaker 1: It was the best I could come up with on
Speaker 1: such short notis I only had a couple of days
Speaker 1: to think of it. Yeah, this one was sort of
Speaker 1: depressing for me. Yeah. Yeah, because we're talking about freedom
Speaker 1: of the press, and while we have that in the
Speaker 1: United States, I mean, I guess we can go ahead
Speaker 1: and spoil a little bit. If you look at rankings
Speaker 1: of freedoms of the press is worldwide, we're not near
Speaker 1: the top of that list, my friend. No, the UM
Speaker 1: Reporters without Borders. It's a French organization. They um they
Speaker 1: basically rate um the uh the press freedoms I guess
Speaker 1: in a hundred and eighty different countries as either as
Speaker 1: either hot or not and wore it best, right, So um,
Speaker 1: that's basically the state of the press anyway. So UM,
Speaker 1: the United States is number forty four. It's actually down
Speaker 1: to two slots. It used to be forty two for
Speaker 1: a few years before that. So um, if you want
Speaker 1: to know more about that. Check out the World Press
Speaker 1: Freedom Index because it goes into a lot more detail.
Speaker 1: And who's number one? Of course Number one is Finland, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the top five is riddled with countries in
Speaker 1: that area as always, Sweden, Denmark, Costa Rica, get it
Speaker 1: all right, Costa Rica. That was a wild card, but
Speaker 1: good for them. Yeah, but it's it's nice to see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hats off Costa Rica. But yeah, it's like you said,
Speaker 1: in the United States, we absolutely, without question have guaranteed
Speaker 1: freedom of the press, but in practice it's a much
Speaker 1: much different thing. Altogether. There's a lot of different ways
Speaker 1: that the press can be limited in what it says, uh,
Speaker 1: for for good or bad. I mean, there are definitely
Speaker 1: times where it's like, yeah, that's that's not really anything
Speaker 1: anyone needs to know about necessarily, especially like say reporting
Speaker 1: on the failings of a private citizen or something like that.
Speaker 1: But um, overall, the idea of a press reporting um
Speaker 1: of like a journalism that that is like just able
Speaker 1: to really get to the heart of a matter and
Speaker 1: explain it without restriction on what it says or how
Speaker 1: it explains it or what it talks about. It's really
Speaker 1: really important and we definitely equate it with democracy. It's
Speaker 1: like one of the pillars of a free society is
Speaker 1: a free press. And we also kind of trace a
Speaker 1: chuck back to the First Amendment, UM, and it definitely
Speaker 1: was enshrined there. But even after the First Amendment was
Speaker 1: created in the Bill of Rights in UM, America was like, okay,
Speaker 1: we we put that in there. Let's just forget about
Speaker 1: it for a century or so. Yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's been what Paul McCartney would call a long and
Speaker 1: winding road. Okay, that's a song by the Beatles, by
Speaker 1: the Way I Got You. I figured that from context
Speaker 1: they've never heard it. I also figured from context that
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't like that song. That's a great song.
Speaker 1: Uh So should we go back in time and sort
Speaker 1: of poke around at the beginnings? Yeah, because it's not
Speaker 1: like America came up with that, right, No, of course not.
Speaker 1: Uh what I love like kind of one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things every time we talk about UM the beginnings
Speaker 1: of the printed word is the fact that and this
Speaker 1: was starting in the fifteenth century when the printing press
Speaker 1: became a big thing, like and one of the reasons
Speaker 1: for creating their printing press like, some of the very
Speaker 1: first things were people writing about and writers were usually
Speaker 1: also printers, but people writing about criticisms of either the
Speaker 1: church or the government. A lot of times those were
Speaker 1: kind of one and the same, and it was it's
Speaker 1: just kind of cool to look back and think all
Speaker 1: the way back then. One of the big reasons the
Speaker 1: printed word existed and became so widespread was so people
Speaker 1: could talk to one another when they had a you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes despotic government looming over them. Yeah. So if you
Speaker 1: were the head of a despotic government, um, with a
Speaker 1: suddenly printing press in your country, you wanted to try
Speaker 1: to limit that as much as you can. So I
Speaker 1: wanted to destroy that printing press from right right exactly. UM.
Speaker 1: So you would have laws that basically said, no one
Speaker 1: can release a book until the government has read it
Speaker 1: and signed off on it. UM. Laws like that they
Speaker 1: are also criminal laws. UM. I believe in England there
Speaker 1: was um uh seditious libel and blasphemous libel, and libel
Speaker 1: was basically not exactly liabel as we understand it today.
Speaker 1: It was if you say anything mean or bad or
Speaker 1: critical of either the government or the church, even if
Speaker 1: it's true you can go to jail for that even
Speaker 1: if it's true. Yeah, factual printing, factual things, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is so contrary to the concept of you know, any
Speaker 1: kind of freedom, especially freedom of speech or freedom of
Speaker 1: the press as we understand it today. But that was
Speaker 1: that was just kind of how things were for a
Speaker 1: good century or so after the printing press was created. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and one of the big turning points. And these guys
Speaker 1: really it's amazing how how like hard they nailed it
Speaker 1: so long ago. But there were these essays named John
Speaker 1: Trenchard and Thomas Gordon who wrote for in the American
Speaker 1: Colonies Britain's American Colonies between the seventeen early seventeen twenties.
Speaker 1: I guess it was all in the early seventeen twenties,
Speaker 1: and they wrote under a pseudonym what was called the
Speaker 1: cape Cato's Letters and named after obviously the Roman statesman.
Speaker 1: But they really nailed the fact right out of the
Speaker 1: gate that like free speech is an essential thing and
Speaker 1: citizens being able to like communicate with one another. And
Speaker 1: you know, of course back then it was like you know,
Speaker 1: a letter that you would print up and and nail
Speaker 1: upon a wall, or you would have chained letters that
Speaker 1: people would forwage one another. It was sort of like
Speaker 1: they're forwarding an email back then. But the people, the
Speaker 1: citizenry of the world needed to be able to speak
Speaker 1: to one another about their grievances and not have their
Speaker 1: voices squashed. I think they even uh they talked about libel.
Speaker 1: They said, it's wrong to criticize private and personal failings,
Speaker 1: even of public figures. And citizens must be free to
Speaker 1: discuss officials actions when they affect people. And this wasn't
Speaker 1: a notion like I think you sent me that extra
Speaker 1: thing that said, like prior to this, the notion of
Speaker 1: free speech wasn't even like a political rallying cry. No,
Speaker 1: it just wasn't a thing like you can basically say
Speaker 1: that trend. Tridan Gordon essentially made it up or or
Speaker 1: put better. They discovered it, you know, the importance of it,
Speaker 1: and they the importance that they placed on it was
Speaker 1: twofold one. They said, people need information because the more
Speaker 1: information you give the general public, the better the decisions
Speaker 1: that they're going to make are. And in a democracy,
Speaker 1: if you're letting the general public vote on stuff, they
Speaker 1: need they need to be informed. You just can't keep
Speaker 1: a lid on on facts. And then the other thing
Speaker 1: that they said too that was really really important is
Speaker 1: they said free speech is so important that even the
Speaker 1: person whose opinions you disagree with has should have freedom
Speaker 1: of speech. And that was a mind blowing new concept
Speaker 1: because in the Colonies prior to that, it was a
Speaker 1: lot like it is today. I should have free speech,
Speaker 1: but if I don't agree with you, you shouldn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I feel like this stuff really hits home for
Speaker 1: me and for us as a show, because even though
Speaker 1: we're not journalists and we never claim to be, we're
Speaker 1: not a new show. I feel like we always championed
Speaker 1: the idea of like knowledge is power. Kind of going
Speaker 1: back to the kids. What was that was that kids
Speaker 1: in the hall? Now, I feel like it was a
Speaker 1: kid's educational knowledgeist power? Is it? Say by the belt?
Speaker 1: That's what it was. Screech said that at the end
Speaker 1: of every episode. Um, no, you're talking about the more
Speaker 1: you know? Now, I'm talking about the literally knowledgeist power
Speaker 1: is it? It might have been uh schoolhouse Rock, it
Speaker 1: might have been one of their things. But anyway, this
Speaker 1: just hit home for me because I feel like we've
Speaker 1: always tried to be a show that we get stuff
Speaker 1: wrong here and there, but we try to spread facts
Speaker 1: about things, and it's not news, he related always sometimes
Speaker 1: it is, but just about the world. Like the more
Speaker 1: you know, the better off you are as a human. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I said, the more you know with a star over.
Speaker 1: A big early victory legally speaking, came in seventeen thirty five.
Speaker 1: There was again a journalist who was also a prey.
Speaker 1: Her name John Peter Zinger. He's he's he's really good
Speaker 1: with a joke at a cocktail party. That's where that
Speaker 1: comes from. Hey, that was his catch friend. Uh, so
Speaker 1: he was printing attacks on I believe it or not.
Speaker 1: William Cosby was the guy's name. Cosby's are always up
Speaker 1: to something. Yeah, I don't think he went by Bill,
Speaker 1: but uh this was the colony's governor, New York's governor
Speaker 1: at the time, and he was arrested, jailed for liabel
Speaker 1: for about ten months, and managed to beat the rap
Speaker 1: at the trial. Even though that he was acquitted. It's
Speaker 1: kind of confusing because he was a critic acquitted on
Speaker 1: the grounds that he was printing factual things. But as
Speaker 1: we said before, like even if you were printing factual things,
Speaker 1: that didn't matter this particular jury just chose to ignore that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: jury nullification. They said, we think this law is wrong.
Speaker 1: They were convinced of it by a guy named Andrew
Speaker 1: Hamilton's who became Zenger's lawyer after his first two lawyers
Speaker 1: were disbarred from by the judge in the case for
Speaker 1: questioning the judges conflict of interest. And it was like
Speaker 1: quite a conflict of interest, Chuck. The whole thing was
Speaker 1: over the removal of a judge that Governor Cosby found troublesome,
Speaker 1: and his replacement was the judge that was hearing this
Speaker 1: case trying the guy who printed stuff about how corrupt
Speaker 1: that movement, that removal of the judge was. That's how
Speaker 1: screwed up this case was. And the the Andrew Hamilton's
Speaker 1: still managed to get the jury to ignore the law
Speaker 1: and to quit Zenger, which was a huge deal. It
Speaker 1: didn't immediately like open the floodgates and now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden there was just press freedom everywhere, but it
Speaker 1: definitely laid a foundation or helped build on the foundation
Speaker 1: that Trenchard and Gordon had first elucidated. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: just a few decades before and this is a few
Speaker 1: years after that chuck um. Sweden, I guess heard about
Speaker 1: all of the hubbub going on in the American colonies
Speaker 1: and said, um, we want to be first first. Sweden
Speaker 1: likes to to do that and comments on the internet
Speaker 1: they just right first everywhere. Yeah, they said, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: that'sn't it wrong to say? Surely the Swedes have a
Speaker 1: good sense of humor about that, Right, we'll find out.
Speaker 1: Maybe do we have listeners there? Sure? All right, I
Speaker 1: don't know that we've ever don't remember any emails from
Speaker 1: Sweden when we call them the Dozen, but yeah, the Dozen,
Speaker 1: the dirty dozen. Although they're very clean people, that's right,
Speaker 1: the fastidious doesn't. So yeah, this was in December seventeen
Speaker 1: sixty six. They were the first country to pass the
Speaker 1: Free of Freedom of Press Act. But it wasn't all
Speaker 1: that was cracked up to be. Uh, they still censor things.
Speaker 1: They basically put the onus on the publishers instead of
Speaker 1: the government to censor things. So, you know, good for
Speaker 1: you in a way, Sweden. But this is just part
Speaker 1: of that long and winding road. But but one thing
Speaker 1: that that act also did was, um, say, if you're
Speaker 1: a citizen of Sweden, you have a right to access
Speaker 1: government documents to see what your government's doing. So in
Speaker 1: one way it was not at all helpful. In another way,
Speaker 1: it was pretty sweeping, you know. And then Virginia um said,
Speaker 1: all right, well, Sweden was first in the world, we
Speaker 1: want to be first in the in the colonies. I
Speaker 1: guess the States because they know I guess it would
Speaker 1: have been the colony still because they came up with
Speaker 1: um part of their charter, or they made amendment to
Speaker 1: their charter that said, Um, we really like what Trenchard
Speaker 1: and Gordon came up with, we like what Zinger stood for,
Speaker 1: and um, we're gonna include the idea that quote, freedom
Speaker 1: of the press is one of the greatest bullworks for
Speaker 1: liberty and that can never be restrained but by despotic governments.
Speaker 1: So they're saying, like, if you have freedom of the press,
Speaker 1: freedom of spree, speech like that will actually defend liberty
Speaker 1: by holding despotism at bay. Because if people know, and
Speaker 1: this is the basis of all this, chuck, if people
Speaker 1: know what's going on, they will hold people to account.
Speaker 1: If people don't know what's going on, people who are
Speaker 1: attracted to power tend to go um toward the dark side. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's really it. It's it's again, knowledge is
Speaker 1: power if you and well we'll get to all that,
Speaker 1: because there are certain nations of the world that don't
Speaker 1: do that, and we'd see it playing out all the time. Uh.
Speaker 1: The U s A. You know, you think when we
Speaker 1: got the First Amendment going on, that hey, it's all
Speaker 1: it's all great now, But as you hinted at earlier,
Speaker 1: it would be a hundred plus years until they were
Speaker 1: truly sort of like protections for the press. Uh. Seven
Speaker 1: years after the First Amendment was born, it was just
Speaker 1: a little baby in first or second grade. Uh, Congress
Speaker 1: pass the Sedition Act of s and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: said we can deport you, we can find you, we
Speaker 1: can imprison you if you publish false, scandalous or malicious writing.
Speaker 1: And you know, scandalous and malicious are very broad terms
Speaker 1: to use when you're saying, like you, if you print
Speaker 1: that against the federal government, then that's you know, something
Speaker 1: we can do bad things to you for. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it just lasted a few years, that particular act, but
Speaker 1: it would come up again later on in a different form, right.
Speaker 1: And also just um a little tidbit on that that
Speaker 1: act was passed by the Federalists who were in power,
Speaker 1: they had the White House and Congress, um, and they
Speaker 1: passed that act in part to um hold that power,
Speaker 1: to maintain that power, to keep from being criticized in
Speaker 1: the press. And apparently, um, the early Americans found out
Speaker 1: about this what was going on, and they disliked that
Speaker 1: law so much that they actually voted the Federalists side
Speaker 1: of office. And that's how Jefferson became president. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's a little yeah and backfired. That's what happens when
Speaker 1: you try to put a strangle on the power. The
Speaker 1: people say nay. People say nay, and I say, let's
Speaker 1: take a break. Okay, let's get those dinner party invitations
Speaker 1: going and get Zinger on the list, and we'll be
Speaker 1: right back. All right, we need to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the Supreme Court of the United States, because
Speaker 1: here's where it all really begins. Yeah, they factor in
Speaker 1: obviously pretty large here at um Well I mentioned this
Speaker 1: Edition Act. There was another Sedition Act that came along
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighteen, which again criminalized a lot of political speech.
Speaker 1: And this is pretty broad as well. It was a
Speaker 1: crime to willfully utter, print, right or publish disloyal very vague, profane,
Speaker 1: not as vague, uh scirrel us super vague or abusive language,
Speaker 1: a little bit vague about the form of government of
Speaker 1: United States, or to speak out against war. And they
Speaker 1: you know, they went after people. They prosecuted uh close
Speaker 1: to two thousand people under the Sedition Act uh and
Speaker 1: the Espionage Act, and the Supreme Court upheld some of these,
Speaker 1: but it at least got them talking. Yeah. So that's
Speaker 1: a really critical thing is the Supreme Court at the
Speaker 1: time was like, we generally agree with that law. But
Speaker 1: all of this, all these cases that were reaching the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court at the time about you know, freedom of speech. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you said, it got them talking. And in particular,
Speaker 1: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Lewis Brandeis kind of
Speaker 1: banded together and brought their their rather considerable um juristic
Speaker 1: minds to bear on the idea of um, free speech
Speaker 1: and freedom of the press and like what that meant
Speaker 1: and what protections it should have, And they used their
Speaker 1: tenure on the Supreme Court to basically establish precedent in
Speaker 1: the United States that said, everything you understand about freedom
Speaker 1: of speech and freedom of the press, uh, we're going
Speaker 1: to basically enshrined together through some basically opinions, not even
Speaker 1: necessarily like um to sending opinions. Sometimes they appended their
Speaker 1: support for you know, um upholding somebody being um uh
Speaker 1: convicted under the sedition actor espion object. But they would
Speaker 1: say things like, you know, um, if you if you
Speaker 1: put people out there and let them talk, you're going
Speaker 1: to have like an exchange of ideas, and the best
Speaker 1: ideas are going to bubble to the top. And so
Speaker 1: this whole idea of freedom of speech that led up
Speaker 1: to Oliver Wendell Holmes that it was a personal liberty
Speaker 1: that you were guaranteed into democracy. They said, yeah, true.
Speaker 1: In addition to that, it's actually a common good if
Speaker 1: you have free speech, because us the best idea can
Speaker 1: be compared and compete against rival ideas, and the one
Speaker 1: that suits society best can win the day because it's
Speaker 1: been debated and hashed out in the marketplace of ideas.
Speaker 1: Right and Holmes champion the marketplace of ideas idea, But
Speaker 1: that was originally uttered by another justice right, yeah, William O.
Speaker 1: Douglas back in the fifties, so about forty years after that.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people credit Oliver Wendell Holmes for
Speaker 1: for coming up with that. Yeah, he just liked to
Speaker 1: wear it on his on his robe, on the back
Speaker 1: of his robe in Rhyinstone. Oh man, that'd be nice. Uh.
Speaker 1: So ur comes another big milestone. Supreme Court heard New
Speaker 1: York Times v. Sullivan and this was this was pretty
Speaker 1: interesting and this was boy, this was a big one
Speaker 1: because this is where we finally got the idea that
Speaker 1: libel isn't just a word that means you said something mean.
Speaker 1: Libel means that you you had actual malice behind it.
Speaker 1: And that is still the standard by which we judge libel. Uh.
Speaker 1: This was an ad in nineteen sixty uh in the
Speaker 1: New York Times. It was run by the UH it
Speaker 1: was or I guess paid for by civil rights advocates,
Speaker 1: and it was criticizing officials in the South for violating
Speaker 1: civil rights. But it had a few um factual inaccuracies
Speaker 1: inaccuracies in there, one of which was how many times
Speaker 1: uh Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Had been arrested. So
Speaker 1: they didn't take kindly to that down there. Uh. There
Speaker 1: was a police commissioner in Alabama that filed the defamation lawsuit.
Speaker 1: Alabama Supreme Court agreed with him, But then the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court went on to overturn that ruling with just
Speaker 1: a milestone majority opinion, which was, you know, actual malice
Speaker 1: has to be approven, and it's on you to prove
Speaker 1: that they meant to have malice. And that is was
Speaker 1: a huge, huge and continues to be a huge deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because prior to that, it was, you know, up to
Speaker 1: this this decision, if you said anything wrong and there
Speaker 1: was any kind of factual er in that you were
Speaker 1: at at fault, and that would have an enormous chilling
Speaker 1: effect on the press. And and that's a huge deal.
Speaker 1: That's like part and parcel with protecting press freedom is
Speaker 1: to also guard against a chilling effect that can happen
Speaker 1: where that that kind of comes about when things are unclear,
Speaker 1: when you're not quite certain of where the line is
Speaker 1: or anything like that, people start to kind of c
Speaker 1: o a, you know, And so they prevented that by
Speaker 1: saying no. Now it's on the person who has supposedly
Speaker 1: been defamed to prove that that person willfully reported facts
Speaker 1: that they knew were wrong. Then you've got slandered, then
Speaker 1: you've got liabel. But up to that point, if you
Speaker 1: can't prove that, then you're you're in the clear press. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and here's the thing, like this was a big deal
Speaker 1: because humans make mistakes. I think there's been none. I
Speaker 1: think it's pretty clear. Over the past, oh, I don't know, uh,
Speaker 1: five years or so, there's been this notion that the
Speaker 1: press purposefully gets things wrong to to back up whatever
Speaker 1: opinion they have on something. And by and large, journalists
Speaker 1: in the United States do have integrity and and they
Speaker 1: want true journalists, not you know, entertainment journalism, but true
Speaker 1: journalists want to get things right because their reputation is
Speaker 1: at stake, and the publications they work for their reputation
Speaker 1: as at stake. And you were a journalist for a while.
Speaker 1: I was a journalist for a while. You want to
Speaker 1: get the stuff right. And if you don't, you can't
Speaker 1: have a law hanging above you. What you do is
Speaker 1: you make it right, and you print retractions and say,
Speaker 1: I goofed up. But uh, it's just it's Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't stay on the soapbox because of like onion juice
Speaker 1: will start squirting out of my pores. Yeah, I'm sure that. Wow,
Speaker 1: that was really growsy. I was trying to think of
Speaker 1: something disgusting that. Yeah, I think, well you nailed it
Speaker 1: on the head, Charlis. That was really good work. Um yeah.
Speaker 1: The problem with that though, the last part that you
Speaker 1: hit upon is the retraction and saying you goofed up.
Speaker 1: Those are a few and far between and when they
Speaker 1: are done there. Yeah, so there's like not enough effort
Speaker 1: to restore someone's good name if it's been besmirched, to
Speaker 1: to get all nineteenth century on on you, um, you know,
Speaker 1: through retractions, through things like that, and like making an
Speaker 1: effort to say, hey, we actually really got this wrong. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. I think it's gotten better at the on
Speaker 1: the with the Internet because it's printed below the article
Speaker 1: that got it wrong. Initially they'll say that this was incorrect,
Speaker 1: so it's gotten way better. But back in the days
Speaker 1: of print only um or even network TV, like, those
Speaker 1: retractions were just so far separated from the actual error
Speaker 1: that they might as well just not connected them at all.
Speaker 1: Uh So, what let's talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: Pentagon papers because that was another I feel like I
Speaker 1: had an extra P in there. Didn't say Pentapon today No, okay,
Speaker 1: it's I can't get pessling in juice? Why did that
Speaker 1: come out of my mouth. That was so weird. It
Speaker 1: came out of your mouth, your poor, your ears, my god,
Speaker 1: your h oh boy. Uh yeah, let's talk about the
Speaker 1: Pentagon papers in seventy one. What was that all about? Well? So, uh,
Speaker 1: what was his name? The Ford exact? Who was will
Speaker 1: you McNamara. He was the fog of War guy. Right.
Speaker 1: He ordered um like basically a forty seven volume exhaustive
Speaker 1: investigation in history of the United States involvement in Vietnam
Speaker 1: from World War Two onward. I think this was the
Speaker 1: sixties up to the late sixties, early seventies. And there
Speaker 1: was this researcher who worked on it for the Pentagon.
Speaker 1: His name is Daniel Ellsberg. He was super into the
Speaker 1: idea that the United States was fighting the good fight
Speaker 1: in Vietnam. But the more he helped compile this and
Speaker 1: the more like of the horrors and the atrocities that
Speaker 1: he saw, uh, he became really um he became a
Speaker 1: conscientious objector in a way. He turned into a whistleblower
Speaker 1: and handed over this super secret classified volume document to
Speaker 1: the New York Times. We started publishing articles on it,
Speaker 1: that's right, And the US Department of Justice originally got
Speaker 1: a temporary restraining order saying you can't do this. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know it boils down to national security basically. And
Speaker 1: then we get the case the New York Times Company, Uh,
Speaker 1: the United States quite a foe. And the Supreme Court said,
Speaker 1: in a six three ruling, you know, you, United States,
Speaker 1: you didn't prove that these articles harmed national security. And
Speaker 1: these are in fact protected under the First Amendment. And
Speaker 1: not only that, just Justice Potter Stewart wrote these very
Speaker 1: wise words, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and
Speaker 1: power in the areas of national defense and international affairs
Speaker 1: may lie in again, and an enlightened citizenry and an informed,
Speaker 1: in critical public opinion, which alone can here protect the
Speaker 1: values of democratic government. Right. And so you can see
Speaker 1: from Justice Potter Stewart's um like little note basically is
Speaker 1: opinion when the government, when the government brings cases like these,
Speaker 1: it really opens itself up for the Supreme Court to
Speaker 1: tee off on free speech and um and freedom of
Speaker 1: the press. And there's a good example, um of the
Speaker 1: government not doing that, to not set of self up
Speaker 1: so that it can it can keep that lyne blurry,
Speaker 1: so that it can create a chilling effect with journalists.
Speaker 1: And that's with the fact that they've never prosecuted a
Speaker 1: journalist for publishing leaked information. By not doing that, they've
Speaker 1: never set themselves up for the Supreme Court to say, irrefutably, yes,
Speaker 1: journalists can do this. Journalists don't worry about that anymore.
Speaker 1: You can't be prosecuted for that. The fact that no
Speaker 1: one ever has means that there's still a possibility that
Speaker 1: with the right case, the government could get you. You
Speaker 1: could go to prison, even though you know, generally the
Speaker 1: way that things go is you're not even prosecuted. It's
Speaker 1: not viewed as illegal, but there's no precedent. So by
Speaker 1: not setting a precedent either way, the government has that
Speaker 1: threat of of prosecuting you hanging over journalists heads, and
Speaker 1: it makes some journalists think twice before accepting, you know,
Speaker 1: leaked in classified materials. Um, I guess you know, we
Speaker 1: kind of teased earlier that some nations are uh I
Speaker 1: guess you could say a bit more threatening than others
Speaker 1: or controlling. UM. China obviously is a country that um,
Speaker 1: you know, in their constitution they technically include the right
Speaker 1: to freedom of the press, but it is a country
Speaker 1: that is so highly regulated under the thumb of their
Speaker 1: Communist Party that they just squash reports, they stop things
Speaker 1: from running. Uh, they everything to them. It seems like
Speaker 1: falls under the banner that it would harm the country.
Speaker 1: And you know the Great Firewall. While we've talked about before.
Speaker 1: I don't even think our podcast is available there if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, right, I don't know when it wasn't,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know, Uh probably won't be after today.
Speaker 1: And this, you know, some have argued that there is
Speaker 1: now a nation of young people, not all of them,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them that have bought into this,
Speaker 1: and that this has had the exact effect that China
Speaker 1: wants to have, and that they believe the Communist Party's
Speaker 1: propaganda machine, and they'll report their professors, they will report
Speaker 1: on their their friends or family if they deviate from
Speaker 1: that party line. And uh, it's it's scary, man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And there's um um. Olivia helps us with this, and
Speaker 1: she cited a researcher from China, ya Qui Wang, who
Speaker 1: um just you know, a good decade before today, was
Speaker 1: you know, studying in China and was free on the
Speaker 1: internet and social media to criticize the government, to to
Speaker 1: trade ideas, that kind of thing, and because of activities
Speaker 1: like hers, the Communist Party said no, we cannot allow that,
Speaker 1: And in just a decade they've managed to completely transform
Speaker 1: the minds of the younger generation in China from what
Speaker 1: what from what our media tells us. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: you know, obviously the same thing has gone on and
Speaker 1: is currently going on in Russia. Uh, notably with the
Speaker 1: invasion of Ukraine. If you ask, you know, the Russian
Speaker 1: state run medias is basically saying this is just a
Speaker 1: limited military operation. We're trying to get the Nazis out
Speaker 1: of Ukraine. And a lot of people buy that there.
Speaker 1: You know, we're a handful of independent news sources. But
Speaker 1: you know, because of uh murder and which which happens.
Speaker 1: I think the UN says between two thousand and six
Speaker 1: and more than twelve d journalists all over the world
Speaker 1: have been killed and murdered for their reporting. Uh. Those
Speaker 1: crimes went unpunished. So with that threat hanging over Russia,
Speaker 1: the same effect has happened over there. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of young people in Russia that that believe that
Speaker 1: what's going on Ukraine is no big deal and fully justified. Well,
Speaker 1: it's that's what happens when you have a government that
Speaker 1: has a strangle hold on media and can just control
Speaker 1: what you see or hear. There's just no other ideas
Speaker 1: that can make their way in. It's it's really staggering.
Speaker 1: It also makes you wonder like, gosh, you know what
Speaker 1: all don't we know? Yeah? For sure? Uh? And you
Speaker 1: know this is not me just going off on a
Speaker 1: on an opinion I have. But in twenty nine we
Speaker 1: had a president of these United States that publicly announced
Speaker 1: and floated the idea of a state run media here
Speaker 1: m hm hm. So the thing is, chuck, Um. If
Speaker 1: you go if you look at the Chinese Constitution, you
Speaker 1: will see that there is a right to um a
Speaker 1: free press that it's in there. But they use the
Speaker 1: Great Firewall of China called the Golden Shield there. Um.
Speaker 1: The they use propaganda, UM, they use lawsuits things like
Speaker 1: that I think you said, um to basically reverse that,
Speaker 1: not on paper, just in practice. Right in the United States,
Speaker 1: we have a very robust guarantee that's been supported time
Speaker 1: and time and time and time again by the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court by laws that protect people um in their right
Speaker 1: to speak um. And we're still hashing it out. But generally,
Speaker 1: we have a very free press in the United States.
Speaker 1: The thing is, that's not to say that we have
Speaker 1: a truly opaque and impartial press in the United States.
Speaker 1: The press can still be limited in a number of
Speaker 1: different ways, even without direct government intervention in their activities
Speaker 1: and what they report on. All right, I think it's
Speaker 1: a great cliffhanger. People are probably wondering what in the
Speaker 1: heck is going on here, and we'll let you know
Speaker 1: right after this. Okay, So um, that was a pretty
Speaker 1: big cliffhanger. The horse went over the cliff with us
Speaker 1: on it. How will we land, Chuck, how will we
Speaker 1: land hopefully safely? All right? Well, how about this? Parachutes
Speaker 1: for both? So really? Well what about the horse? Yeah,
Speaker 1: for both the horse and nuts. Oh, we're sharing a parachute. No,
Speaker 1: you and I are run a horse, right, we have
Speaker 1: two parachutes the horse. The horse has one. Okay, so
Speaker 1: parachutes for all all three of us are landing safely. Originally,
Speaker 1: in my mind's eye, we were each on our own horse.
Speaker 1: But then I thought it'd be fun to share horse. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like an oversized horse and I get to ride
Speaker 1: them back. That means I want to hug you around
Speaker 1: the waist like, that's totally fine. Um. The parachute, though,
Speaker 1: for the horse, has to be much larger than easily
Speaker 1: either of our parachutes. Is it larger size? It's larger
Speaker 1: in it, and it obviously is attached between us because
Speaker 1: we don't want to tip off, even though we have
Speaker 1: our own parachute. We want to go down as a
Speaker 1: nice little threesome. So the horses parachutes what connected around
Speaker 1: like maybe like a girdle or something like that. And
Speaker 1: then are our parachutes are connected to the horse's parachute? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I think how it works is I've seen this before.
Speaker 1: The horse's parachute is integrated into the saddle. Okay, uh,
Speaker 1: sort of between you and I. It's a two person saddle.
Speaker 1: And then you and I have just regular parachutes, but
Speaker 1: we are then also strapped to the horse and saddle,
Speaker 1: so we're being supported by the horses parachute in addition
Speaker 1: to our own parachutes. Yeah, we're kind of like the
Speaker 1: backup okay, gotcha. Okay, So now that we've landed safely
Speaker 1: and the horses trotting us along again. Um, A really
Speaker 1: good example of indirect government intervention um and self censorship
Speaker 1: of the press comes at times when there's like a
Speaker 1: war or something, and a good example of that came
Speaker 1: after nine eleven, where basically the entire United States media said,
Speaker 1: what just tell us what to do? What do you
Speaker 1: want from us government? We're going to completely just listen
Speaker 1: because we're feeling particularly patriotic right now. Yeah, it's sort
Speaker 1: of easy to forget that. But there was a from
Speaker 1: University of Pittsburgh. There was a scholar there named Gordon
Speaker 1: Or Mitchell who described that reporting as the a spiral
Speaker 1: of self censorship. And I guess, you know, I just
Speaker 1: didn't remember it that way. But when you look back
Speaker 1: at things like Dan rather being on David Letterman, Dan
Speaker 1: Rather uh and saying, George Bush is the president. Wherever
Speaker 1: he wants me to line up, just tell me where
Speaker 1: and he'll make the call. Will do whatever is our
Speaker 1: patriotic duty, It's it's easy to kind of forget that
Speaker 1: was a sentiment at the time, and everybody was was
Speaker 1: lining up to say, hey, you got it? What what
Speaker 1: do he want us to say? Yeah? I remember, um,
Speaker 1: there was like a benefit concert with in a few
Speaker 1: days of nine eleven for like the first responders, and
Speaker 1: Richard Gear came out on stage and he he asked
Speaker 1: everyone to please he knows that we're hurting, and he
Speaker 1: knows that we're angry, but he's asking us to channel
Speaker 1: all of this into into love, into a peace rather
Speaker 1: than hatred. And he got booed off the stage by
Speaker 1: everybody in New York at the time. And that was
Speaker 1: totally sentiment, like people like Richard Gear didn't say things
Speaker 1: like that, or nobody else after Richard Gear did, except
Speaker 1: for apparently Bill Maher um who said something about He
Speaker 1: said that, uh, um, you call it, say, well, say
Speaker 1: what you will about it, but if you're on the
Speaker 1: plane still when it hits the building, that's not cowardly.
Speaker 1: And he had compared, you know, shooting cruise missiles into
Speaker 1: another country as cowardly. And that was basically it for
Speaker 1: Bill Maher's politically incorrect show after that. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: like the government was saying Bill Maher, you're off the air, um,
Speaker 1: Richer Gear, go make some terrible, a terrible string of
Speaker 1: movies for a while as your punishment, Like that's not
Speaker 1: what happened. Instead, it was like people saw that and
Speaker 1: they were kind of repelled by it. It was so
Speaker 1: far against like the group think at the time, so
Speaker 1: outside of the general mood of like vengeance and hurt
Speaker 1: that America was going through in the immediate wake of
Speaker 1: nine eleven. That um that people just kind of were
Speaker 1: compelled to fall in line by themselves. Like that's just
Speaker 1: how how you were at the time. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and you know, of course, when companies pull ad dollar
Speaker 1: something like politically incorrect and go away very fast or
Speaker 1: or at least give a TV network another reason to say, oh,
Speaker 1: we canceled them because you know, we couldn't get any
Speaker 1: ads on it right, right, So that was that's one example.
Speaker 1: But then also, um, there's a really good um chiller,
Speaker 1: I guess something that has a chilling effect because remember
Speaker 1: it's really important aspect in a country that has a
Speaker 1: nominally free press, but the press is still controlled and
Speaker 1: you hit upon it. Advertisers and ad dollars, they really
Speaker 1: have a genuine impact on what reporters and journalists feel
Speaker 1: free to say, either directly like they're muzzled by like
Speaker 1: their editors or their publishers, or they just know if
Speaker 1: I report this fact about you know, my parent company,
Speaker 1: it's gonna look bad. For the parent company. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna leave this fact out in the article. That's self censoring,
Speaker 1: and that's something that the American press does. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was a survey in two thousand and Olivia does point
Speaker 1: out it's an old survey, but it's probably um no
Speaker 1: different and maybe even worse twenty years on. But uh,
Speaker 1: thirty one of journalists avoided stories that could hurt their
Speaker 1: news organization or its parent company and said the same
Speaker 1: if it could hurt the advertisers. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: just this notion that you know, I get a paycheck
Speaker 1: from someone, and I know that ultimately that paycheck comes
Speaker 1: from either selling newspapers or selling ads in those newspapers. Uh.
Speaker 1: And of course that was a long time ago when
Speaker 1: the the newspaper was still like in print, right, like
Speaker 1: a big deal. But uh, this this all comes down
Speaker 1: to the fact that these are for profit businesses, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to lose your objectivity when you're keeping
Speaker 1: that in mind. Yeah, and also it's all bears pointing
Speaker 1: out that a very small group of people, um either
Speaker 1: individual wealthy billionaires in the case of Jeff Bezos with
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, or you know, giant conglomerate companies like
Speaker 1: GE owning I think NBC maybe, UM, and all of
Speaker 1: them have like a lot of interest in common, which
Speaker 1: is protecting the bottom line. So it's really easy to
Speaker 1: get everybody to kind of report generally the same thing
Speaker 1: and not report on generally the same thing. UM. And
Speaker 1: there's a we talked about it before, but that Robert
Speaker 1: Smigel um Musty TV funhouse conspiracy theory rock does a
Speaker 1: really great job of explaining how the whole thing works.
Speaker 1: And it's a good fifteen years old by now, but
Speaker 1: it's just as as correct as ever. A genius, he
Speaker 1: really was a genius. And there's one other thing I
Speaker 1: would advise people to do at this point when you're
Speaker 1: thinking about, you know, just how free the American press
Speaker 1: is and how constrained it is by dollars, Cora is
Speaker 1: a really good place to go, like re um, you know,
Speaker 1: intelligent people's opinions on things presented as opinions, not as
Speaker 1: fact or anything. Yeah. Yes, And if you look up
Speaker 1: does America have a free press? I found the answers
Speaker 1: on that UM question really UM enlightening. I mean, nothing new,
Speaker 1: I didn't hear anything new, but it was UM just
Speaker 1: just to see over and over again, like, yes, there's
Speaker 1: a free press, not really though, because it's all constrained
Speaker 1: by dollars and it's all owned by corporations. Uh. It
Speaker 1: really kind of makes you understand where you're where our
Speaker 1: places in the world and why we're number forty four
Speaker 1: in in the in the way of free press around
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, and you know, we have to talk
Speaker 1: about social media too, because that is, in the scope
Speaker 1: of the history of the press, a very new kind
Speaker 1: of media and it is, uh, it is not figured
Speaker 1: out yet. I guess it's the kindest way to say it,
Speaker 1: because what you have with social media, I mean, it
Speaker 1: really giveth in it take it the way. On one hand,
Speaker 1: you have more access than ever for someone to be
Speaker 1: able to truly get out um reporting or something like
Speaker 1: that that's factual and would be maybe squashed by a
Speaker 1: parent company or by a traditional media company. But you've
Speaker 1: also got a situation where you know, you can kind
Speaker 1: of say whatever you want under the guise of like
Speaker 1: this is just my opinion. And people in today's America,
Speaker 1: a lot of people take things that are completely made
Speaker 1: up and completely false as true and factual. And it's scary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's super scary. It's a really uncomfortable time to be
Speaker 1: living because we're like, when, when are we going to
Speaker 1: figure this out? How are we going to figure this out?
Speaker 1: Are we ever going to figure this out? Or things
Speaker 1: going to Is it going to be one of those
Speaker 1: things where things are going to get a lot worse
Speaker 1: before they get better. Who knows. We just don't know
Speaker 1: because we're living in the midst of it right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, as Olivia points out, it's a situation
Speaker 1: where they are like traditional media companies in some ways
Speaker 1: because they can juice an algorithm to get something more
Speaker 1: seen than something else. But then it's not like they
Speaker 1: don't like a company like Facebook doesn't have or any
Speaker 1: social media company doesn't have the same um or at
Speaker 1: least legally right now, they don't have the same ethical
Speaker 1: standards of a traditional media company right right. So it's
Speaker 1: like this new animal that kind of looks a lot
Speaker 1: like the old animal, but is like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you can't treat me like the old animal. I'm something different.
Speaker 1: Um And and that's kind of what we're figuring out
Speaker 1: is it's, like you said, they have different ethical standards,
Speaker 1: and that's really found in the case of Gawker UM,
Speaker 1: which was a gossipy news site UM that saw fit
Speaker 1: to publish Whole Cogan's sex tape that got leaked to
Speaker 1: them UM where Whole Cogan. Yes, So everything about this
Speaker 1: case is gross. Whole Cogan was cheating on his wife
Speaker 1: with his best friend's wife, made a sex tape of it,
Speaker 1: Gawker saw fit to publish it like that's just news
Speaker 1: that people need to know about. And UM got sued
Speaker 1: by Hulk Hogan, sued out of existence by Hulk Cogan.
Speaker 1: And that's another aspect of this case that was gross.
Speaker 1: Peter Thiel, a billionaire who was one of the founders
Speaker 1: of PayPal, secretly financed the case because he hated Gawker
Speaker 1: because Gawker had outed him as gay back in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. So he financed Whole Cogan's case and basically
Speaker 1: drove Gawker into bankruptcy. And that's not supposed to be okay, Like,
Speaker 1: even if you hate somebody's free speech, a billionaire shouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to decide who says what or who doesn't
Speaker 1: say what. So that's another gross part Whole Cogan one,
Speaker 1: because he managed to position himself as like an everyday
Speaker 1: guy who was up against this elite, snobby New York media. Um,
Speaker 1: that's pretty gross too. And then ultimately the worst part
Speaker 1: of it is that this this dumb move by Gawker
Speaker 1: to publish Whole Cogan's sex tape opened up a really
Speaker 1: terrible can of worms that just did not need to
Speaker 1: be opened. Um, which which basically says, hey, you remember
Speaker 1: that idea that truth can never be considered liabel. That
Speaker 1: has been a foundation of American law of free speech
Speaker 1: and free press. Let's turn that on its head. Let's
Speaker 1: test that by publishing this whole Cogan sex tape. And
Speaker 1: so they lost their lawsuit, like they even though it
Speaker 1: was true this whole Cogan didn't dispute that that was
Speaker 1: him and that was his sex tape. Uh, And Gawker
Speaker 1: published it and that was it. He's still won a
Speaker 1: hundred and forty million dollar lawsuit against him, and Gawker
Speaker 1: went out of business. And whatever you think of Gawker,
Speaker 1: they were still technically media. They were still technically the press.
Speaker 1: And so now you've got billionaires who can who can
Speaker 1: run press out of existence if they don't like what
Speaker 1: they have to say. That's where we're still we are
Speaker 1: right now, we're still figuring this out, and it's a
Speaker 1: it's a scary time, yeah, because you know, most companies
Speaker 1: of that size don't have the money, and that's what
Speaker 1: happened to Gawker. They don't have the money to hang
Speaker 1: in there unless another billionaires and financing theirs, and then
Speaker 1: we're in real trouble when it's just billionaires secretly, you know,
Speaker 1: suing one another behind, you know, the guys of another case, right,
Speaker 1: that would not be fun. It would not be fun. So,
Speaker 1: like we said, the United States press is number forty
Speaker 1: four out of a hundred and eighty. It's a that's
Speaker 1: a solid b, I would say, But you would expect,
Speaker 1: really the first country to truly enshrine free speech into
Speaker 1: its um constitutional amendments to have to be a lot
Speaker 1: higher than forty four. But it's not. So. If you
Speaker 1: want to know more about that, you can go check
Speaker 1: out Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. But basically,
Speaker 1: the upshot of it is that there is a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of mistrust in journalists in the United States and
Speaker 1: in media in general, and a lot of false information
Speaker 1: that's easily passed around, and that's kind of setting the
Speaker 1: stage for a really um a disrupted press or purpose
Speaker 1: of the press, which is again to tell people like
Speaker 1: you and me what the people running the show are
Speaker 1: doing so we can decide whether we want them to
Speaker 1: continue running the show or not. That's right, and we
Speaker 1: should mention that if you're wondering what the bottom of
Speaker 1: that list looks like. The bottom five there are a
Speaker 1: couple of African nations Djibouti and Eritrea, and then of
Speaker 1: course China, Turkmenistan, and then obviously North Korea. Yes, obviously obvious. Sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: Kim Jong un. Well, now you're gonna get us off
Speaker 1: the air there, Yeah, there's no way we're on the
Speaker 1: air there. We're too free. Baby. Uh Well, since Chuck
Speaker 1: said that's right, of course, everybody. That means it's time
Speaker 1: for listener mail. I'm gonna call this rhinoplasty follow up
Speaker 1: this from well, I'll save that part, hey, guys, keep
Speaker 1: doing the great work. Really enjoy the lighthearted approach presenting
Speaker 1: information from the interesting minutia about important topics to the
Speaker 1: deeply important, even politically charged topics like today, as a
Speaker 1: person who has had to have three separate rhino plastic surgeries, uh,
Speaker 1: and he says parenthetically, I've got some ridiculously troublesome sinuses,
Speaker 1: septum and other miscellaneous issues. I had one other point
Speaker 1: to add, something I had never heard of was the urbinates. Uh.
Speaker 1: Mine were apparently huge. Uh. These are little fingerlike folds
Speaker 1: of skin that run along the interior of your nostrils.
Speaker 1: They swell in the swell alternately and are the reason
Speaker 1: when you have a bad cold one side is totally plugged,
Speaker 1: but you can breathe to the other one. Anyway. Part
Speaker 1: of my surgeries was trimming those down because they were
Speaker 1: causing me breathing problems. The med student it was helping
Speaker 1: me mentioned after the surgery and horror that he had
Speaker 1: new idea so much stuff could come out of a
Speaker 1: person's head. It's always fun when you hear something like
Speaker 1: that in post, stuff like I've never seen a blank
Speaker 1: that big, sir, You got a picture right? That is
Speaker 1: from John B. Parks, husband, father, nerd fighter, Hufflepuff, Let's
Speaker 1: Go Royals, Chiefs, s K C and COI's and then
Speaker 1: that he has a Gandhi quote. This is all in
Speaker 1: his email signature. So I'd always like to read that stuff. Uh,
Speaker 1: Liz live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn
Speaker 1: as if you were to live forever Mahatma Gandhi. Very nice.
Speaker 1: And then below that it says that he might get
Speaker 1: revenue from any links you click that take you to Amazon.
Speaker 1: I never had an email signature that said things like
Speaker 1: quotes and stuff. I kind of like that, Yeah, okay, well, Chuck,
Speaker 1: today is your day to start, all right? That was John?
Speaker 1: That was John. Thanks a lot, John. I appreciate that
Speaker 1: I may actually be getting that done too. They mentioned
Speaker 1: that for me, and I was like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: this sounds like an up cell, so maybe not. John
Speaker 1: might have convinced me. If you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with this like John did, we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you. You can send us an email and send
Speaker 1: it to specifically Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio.
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