University of Virginia Library

Muzzling The Press

When Peter J. Bridge, a reporter for the
now-defunct Newark Evening News, was
locked up in the Essex County Jail last week
for contempt-of-court, the American people
were indirect victims. Mr. Bridge was put
away for refusing to divulge sources and facts
relating to situations about which he had not
written on grounds that the information had
been given him in confidence and that the
state had not shown "compelling need" for
whatever information he might have had.

The independence and confidentiality
required by a free press have always been
recognized as part of the foundation of a free
society where the people's right to know is
their only protection against acts which
public officials might undertake which are not
in the public interest. We have recently seen
examples of editorial decisions which,
whether determined rightly or wrongly in
one's own opinion, nevertheless were
necessarily left to the editors to make.

If, for instance, the government had
exercised allegedly justifiable intervention in
the publication of the "Pentagon Papers,"
the Lavelle unauthorized bombings, or My
Lai, the "people's right to know" would be
no more than a hollow reminder of an age
when the state was not omnipotent.

Fortunately things have not deteriorated
that far. But the incarceration of a reporter
for refusing to divulge information which 1)
he had obtained in confidence, and 2) was not
proven to be required in the public interest to
prosecute for malfeasance, is clear evidence of
the move away from a free press. Law
enforcement officials and other government
agents stifle with increasing frequency
through whatever means within the letter of
law (which is being constantly stretched in
the government's behalf) any criticism by the
press based on evidence of wrongdoing in the
government.

While the courts demand that reporters
divulge confidential material, thus making the
press "an investigative arm of the
government," governmental agencies
throughout the country take any measures
available to subject the press to de facto prior
censorship by making news as unavailable as
possible and by enjoining newspapers from
publishing information damning to the
administration or policies currently in
existence. From both sides the vigilance of a
free press is being chipped away in favor of
the state control of news according to its
quotient of acceptability to those in power.

The student press has always been
something of a special case as most student
newspapers receive some portion of their
receipts through student monies. However,
there are certain responsibilities and certain
freedoms which apply equally to both the
independent press and the student press. As
long as it is the responsibility of editors at all
levels to abide by certain strictures regarding
journalistic ethics and truth, it is in the
interests of all editors to continue the fight
against the inroads of those who serve their
own cause–but not the public good–by
muzzling the press and emasculating the first
amendment.

If we want the benefit of the safeguards
offered by a free and independent press in
this country, it appears that we must have
what the New York Times called a "shoring
up through legislative reinforcement" of the
applicability of the First Amendment. While
reporter Bridge languishes in jail, the cause
which his refusal to divulge represents should
be taken as a catalyst prodding the Congress
to pass on such legislation.

For if the American public is to be the
benefactor of both good journalism and good
government it must be as willing to support
legislation to protect the press under the first
amendment as it justifiably is to support
stringent libel laws to protect individuals.