A strong dose of free speech

Well-meaning resolutions follow the dawn of the New Year. Lose weight. Go to church more frequently. Do more to help others.

With the dawning of 2009, Mary Beth Tinker would add a little stronger dose of free speech in schools to the nation's diet.

Tinker, the celebrated plaintiff of the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Tinker v Des Moines, continues to be a rock star for student journalists and those who truly believe in free speech in schools. In the last year, she appeared at conventions and events nationwide, from West Virginia to Lansing to Muncie, extolling the virtues of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Her case -- she was one of the Iowa kids wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War in 1965 -- established the principle that public school students have the right to free speech in schools.

She has worked hard for 40 years to get students, teachers and principals to remember the importance of the case that bears her name.

"Appreciation for the Bill of Rights is just as important for a student's health as any vaccine or nutritious diet." she told a Ball State University audience a little more than a year ago. "Speaking up for yourself makes you healthy and happy, but it also makes life a whole lot more interesting."

Happy 40th birthday, Tinker v Des Moines.

I have never had any animus toward politicians and government officials as a whole. But as the General Assembly is about to open, take heed of the words of that famous philosopher, Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra: "It ain't over till it's over."

Which, in a roundabout way, gets me to censorship and secrecy. They are like plants or germs we think we have killed, only to see them sprout again and again no matter how many times we think we've eradicated them.

So it behooves us to constantly be on guard against government action that seeks to slice tongues, slam doors and squelch important documents.
No matter how many times we fight for and preserve openness in government, we can never become complacent. Censorship and secrecy have a way of gaining new lives in the corridors of city halls, courthouses, statehouses and Capital Hill.

Matthew Tully recently wrote about state Sen. Mike Delph, who wants tougher restrictions on lobbyists. Delph told Tully, "We have an obligation to illuminate to the public what is going on within their government. The public has a right to know how these decisions are being made."

Delph, of course, is correct. But never mind. There will always be attempts by some in government to poison the free flow of ideas so essential in a democratic society.

Please keep that in mind as the legislature swings into action, because when it comes to censorship and secrecy, they ain't ever over.

It's time to celebrate another milestone. Happy birthday, Bill of Rights.

Yes, the nation's Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, were ratified on Dec. 15, 1791, making the living symbol of our basic liberties 217 years old on the Monday.
The Bill of Rights represents an essential bookend to the Constitution, which formed a strong government. James Madison and other Founding Fathers, masters of compromise all, knew our new country would not stand for a repressive central government (after all, they had just overthrown King George) and insisted that a Bill of Rights be created to counterbalance that new form of government to be headed by a strong president.

Those 10 amendments, inspired by the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the English Bill of Rights and other writings from the Age of Enlightenment, guaranteed important principles, including free speech, the right to bear arms and the right to a fair trial, just to name a few.

Today, we have 27 amendments, but the term Bill of Rights refers only to the first 10. That ability to amend the Constitution is the secret to the success of our representative democracy.

So sit back this week and reflect of the wisdom of our ancestors. Raise your glass of holiday cheer in their honor. They were a pretty smart group!

Connecticut's governor, Republican M. Jodi Rell, and its attorney general, Democrat Richard Blumenthal, say they would be interested in a bipartisan effort to save daily newspapers at Bristol and New Haven, along with 11 sister weeklies, from closing.
That news broke as the Hoosier State Press Association was publishing a special edition celebrating 75 years of service.

Those two things have nothing in common except this: the First Amendment.
After reading about the situation in Connecticut and then spending a few hours with HSPA's special edition, I have mixed feelings: wariness about the situation in Connecticut, pride over Indiana's glorious newspaper history.

I believe that Connecticut's top two officials are acting with good intentions, but I am concerned that the essential arm's length between government and the media could be compromised. An arm's length between those who legislate and those who report is an absolute for media credibility.

That basic truth comes through in HSPA's special edition. Page after page, we are reminded that our democratic society must never stop protecting its core freedom, as stated in the First Amendment.

That's a given that must never die, no matter how many newspapers survive and no matter how the media landscape changes.

The grace period is over from the November presidential election. Now, it's time to review the latest cases of ignorance about the First Amendment and how it fits into our lives.

Enter Sarah Palin, the unsuccessful GOP candidate for vice president.
Palin is as ignorant about the nuances of the First Amendment as 99 out of every 100 Americans, according to studies about the nation's civic health.

In the days leading up to Nov. 4, Palin told a radio talk-show host that it was not negative politicking when she criticized Barack Obama for his association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Instead, she said journalists threatened her free-speech rights by pointing out that she was going negative.

Calling all civics teachers. Gov. Palin, the First Amendment bars government from abridging free speech rights. Not the other way around.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd needs a lesson too. She complained that her First Amendment rights were being violated by the McCain campaign's refusal to allow her on its plane.

We have a long way to go. Only 56 percent of Americans can identify free speech as one of the five freedoms guaranteed under the First Amendment. Smaller percentages of people can name the other freedoms.

Palin and Dowd should be ashamed of their lack of knowledge about the most important plank of our Bill of Rights. Let's send them both back to school.

Twice a year I attend national scholastic journalism conventions that usually leave me energized and full of new ideas. This time, however, I left a little startled.
On Saturday I sat on a scholastic press rights panel, and several concerns came up that should scare anyone fond of a democratic society.

Several students shared stories of school administrators overstepping their bounds, from pulling right-to-life ads in a paper that was established as an open forum to yanking candidate endorsements because the school administration didn't agree with the candidate the paper endorsed.

Even in the most restrictive setting for a student publication, censoring an article because you don't agree with it is unconstitutional. And scary.

I hope the students involved in these situations decide to fight for their rights, because now they are being ignored. We must hold decision-makers accountable when they err, and encourage them to be partners in the development of student journalists, not roadblocks to a democratic society.

Now that the election is over, we can soon begin thinking about what we want the next Congress to accomplish.

One issue that won't be a high priority, but probably will come up, is the possible passage of a shield law for journalists. A bill that would have created such a shield passed in the House but died in the Senate during the 110th Congress.

I'm not completely sold on the idea of a shield law, but a major advantage of one would be to bring consistency to a muddled area of law.

The bill Congress considered in 2007-08 had too many exceptions for my taste, largely because of attempts to appease the Bush administration, which opposed the bill. By the time Congress was done, a journalist could only protect a source's identity on the second Monday of months with no R's if there was no rain.

But I'd like to see an exception that would protect journalists shielding legitimate whistle-blowers, not journalists protecting gossips and criminals.

Then all we have to do is define who is a "journalist." I can't do it these days, but I'm sure Congress is smarter than I am. Right?

Who would have thought: a run on newspapers?

In the digital age, some critics of newspapers have pronounced that delivery medium to be on life support, but look what happened in the hours immediately after the election of Barack Obama as our 44th president and the first African-American to hold the nation's highest office. There was a run on newspapers.

The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other dailies reported demand for the printed newspaper to be at a record level. Editor and Publisher, a trade journal, said newspapers could sell millions of additional copies. The Washington Post alone sold 350,000 extra copies of the Nov. 5 paper. USA Today printed 380,000 extra copies.
"Print legitimizes news in a way that online news never will," said John Christie, publisher of Central Maine Newspapers in Augusta. "Print has a certain cache, a lot of value when big news occurs."

In Chicago, site of the giant Obama rally on election night, the Tribune distributed 200,000 extra copies, while the Chicago Sun-Times added 150,000 copies.
To borrow from an old saying, rumors of the death of newspapers have been greatly exaggerated.

Stupid speech is protected speech. But some speech you'd rather not have to defend.
The following message was sent via text message to countless phones today: "ATTENTION: ALL WHITE PEOPLE NEED TO REPORT TO THE COTTON FIELDS AT SEVEN AM FOR ORIENTATION."

I'm not entirely sure who should be offended the most by this message. My guess is everyone.

One hopes as a society we are past bigotry and racism, but with the comments I have overheard the past few days, that simply isn't the case.
"Keep the White House "white.' "

"We don't need another black man in Washington, D.C., begging for change."

Sigh.

While some will use their free speech guarantee to spread nonsense, others need to answer the call and retaliate with accurate information that moves us away from hate and uninformed diatribes. Let's let informed speech be our weapon against hate and racism and not sink to levels that are hard to defend.

I was glad to see that the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld a judge's order to release juvenile records related to TaJanay Bailey's death.

At the same time, I recognize that complex issues are raised in this type of situation, which may explain why the court did not endorse the release of juvenile records more broadly.
The press and public are watchdogs of public agencies and need access to information about those agencies' actions in order to critique their performance.

But when a public agency is in charge of protecting children, the agency should be vigilant about protecting them from undue publicity as well as abuse.

Here, where a child died while the Department of Child Services was monitoring her care, the proper balance was struck in favor of disclosure. Sadly, TaJanay is beyond caring about her privacy, but we can still learn from the record of her life contained in DCS documents.