The Irony of News Coverage: How the Media Harm Their Own First Amendment Rights

Authors

Clay Calvert
Robert D. Richards

Abstract

This article argues that the First Amendment protection provided to the news media today actually may be harming -- unjustifiably and unnecessarily -- the scope of First Amendment protection given to other sectors of the media, most notably, the Hollywood entertainment industry and non-mainstream journalists. Using the death of Princess Diana and the school shootings at Columbine High School to illustrate a seven-step process that the authors assert gives rise to this disturbing irony, the article contends that high-profile journalistic coverage of these events produced false public perceptions of reality and media culpability - a false perception that the paparazzi were to blame for Diana's death, and a false perception that school violence was rapidly escalating due to violent media content -- that set the stage for the legislative responses targeting the media. False and/or hysterical images perpetrated and perpetuated by the news media led, at least in part, to flawed efforts to influence and affect public policy. The article reveals the dangers of a system today in which some segments of the media industry are harming their brethren and, concomitantly, damaging the very blanket of constitutional protection under which all media entities must seek shelter.

Recommended Citation

Clay Calvert and Robert D. Richards, The Irony of News Coverage: How the Media Harm Their Own First Amendment Rights, 24 UC Law SF Comm. & Ent. L.J. 215 (2001).
Available at: https://repository.uclawsf.edu/hastings_comm_ent_law_journal/vol24/iss2/2