1st Amendment Rights and High School Students

Ross Reynolds
02/01/2005 at 12:00 p.m.

Americans believe in freedom of speech in the abstract. But when you get to specific examples, we’re not so sure. Should newspapers be able to publish the name of an undercover CIA agent? Is a blogger a journalist, entitled to first amendment press protections? Is pornography free speech? Under the banner of freedom of religion, can religious groups do things that are illegal for the rest of us? Our uneasiness with the First Amendment begins early. A recent survey of over 112,000 high school students found that more than a third, 36%, think newspapers should get government approval before publishing news stories. Nearly a third of those high school students say there’s too much freedom of the press. Today on The Conversation, the state of the First Amendment.

Guests:
Jack Dvorak professor of journalism and director of the High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. He was a consultant on the survey done by the Knight Foundation