In providing for the patenting of inventions, and more generally in providing that the people are to be free to do things differently than in prior generations, the Constitution plainly contemplates technological advancement. Furthermore, the position of the framers of the Constitution before it was amended was that the rights which could be delineated in the Bill of Rights insisted upon by the Antifederalists were already implied in the original, and that a listing of rights could not easily be constructed which could never be construed as reducing the rights recognized by the Constitution.It would, therefore, be fatuous to take the words "the press" in the First Amendment in a reactionary, technologically static, sense. The printing press as it was known in the Founding Era was hopelessly crude and inflexible by modern standards - but there can of course be no implication that only the use of printing presses of archaic design is protected by the Constitution.
"Freedom of the press" cannot refer to specifically to the use of the technology of printing circa 1792. It certainly includes the use of high speed printing presses developed since the 1830s - and of telegraphy as well. And also the use of photography, telephony, movies, radio, Xerography, and television developed much later. And it not only includes the use of the computer printer and the Internet today, in principle it includes the use of whatever communication technology may extend those capabilities in as yet novel ways in the future. "Freedom of the press" is a right of the people, and each of us individually - the right to spend our own money to use technology to promote our own opinions about what we ourselves consider to be important. Most especially, in light of the establishment and free exercise clauses and of the assembly and petition clauses of the First Amendment, freedom of the press is the right of any person to spend money to use technology to promote his/her opinions on religion or politics in particular.
The principle is that if anyone has the right to spend money to employ a particular communication technology, everyone (who can afford it, as in combination with other like-minded people most would have some ability to afford some use of most such technologies) has the right to spend money to employ that technology. Under the Constitution the government does not get to elevate some people to privileged status officially recognized as "objective" or any other title of nobility. Anyone has the right to thus exert themselves to make it easy for his fellows to see, hear, and/or read his opinions - but whoever does so must interest and persuade his target audience, who have no obligation to give his exertions the slightest notice.
Anyone can, like the Sophists of old, claim superior wisdom - or objectivity, or any other virtue. But whoever does so - no matter what the weight of their purses, what printing presses, telegraph lines, or other communications equipment they may own or control, or even how many others similarly situated who may be in concert with them in making such claim - cannot thereby attain any authority over the opinions of their fellows. They not only do not attain the authority of the verdict of a jury, they do not (precisely because of their freedom) even attain the credibility of witnesses under oath and subject to the laws of perjury. They are still only people, and they do not on that account constitute any part of the government.
We the people are free to use the press in all its forms, and free from efforts by the government to prevent the success of our efforts to do so.
BTTT
*BUMP*
All Ranks and orders of our People, are intelligent, are accomplished-- a Native of America, especially of New England, who cannot read and wright is as rare a Phenomenon as a Comet.April Shenandoah offers some statistics on early American literacy.
At the time of the Revolution, the literacy level was virtually 100% (even on the frontier it was greater than 70%).Fairness doctrinaires ought to carefully note results gleaned from a recent poll.
According to a new poll by Zogby and the Independent Film Channel the internet is now more trusted than TV and print news combined. Wired News and LGF reported:
The web is the most trusted news medium (over TV and print combined), and Fox News is the most trusted TV news source, according to results from a new Zogby poll commissioned by the Independent Film Channel (pdf).
Fox ruled with 39.3 percent of those polled beating out CNN at 16 percent and MSNBC at 15 percent.
These results are good fodder for Fox in defending its claims of being "Fair and Balanced" -- it's also interesting to note that more people in the poll described themselves as Democrats than Republicans -- but the majority of Americans seem to also have little faith in the media at all.
The online survey of 3,472 adults two days after the election found that three out of four people think that the media influenced the outcome, and about the same number also think that the media in general is biased.
In the other categories, The New York Times was the most trusted newspaper and Rush Limbaugh (12.5 percent) came out on top among news personalities closely followed by Fox’s Bill O’Reilly (10.1 percent).