Freedom of Speech: Mightier Than the Sword by David K. Shipler

By David K. Shipler

A provocative, well timed evaluate of the kingdom of loose speech in America

With his top vendor The operating terrible, Pulitzer Prize winner and previous ny instances veteran David ok. Shipler cemented his position between our so much trenchant social commentators. Now he turns his incisive reporting to a serious American excellent: freedom of speech. Anchored in own stories—sometimes surprising, occasionally absurd, occasionally dishearteningly familiar—Shipler’s investigations of the cultural limits on either expression and the willingness to pay attention construct to show troubling instabilities within the very foundations of our democracy.

Focusing on fresh loose speech controversies around the country, Shipler maps a quickly moving topography of political and cultural norms: mom and dad in Michigan rallying to academics vilified for his or her studying lists; conservative ministers risking their churches’ tax-exempt prestige to evangelise politics from the pulpit; nationwide protection journalists utilizing concepts extra universal in dictatorships to prevent leak prosecution; a Washington, D.C., Jewish theater’s fight for inventive regulate within the face of protests focusing on productions severe of Israel; historical past academics in Texas quietly bypassing a reactionary curriculum to offer scholars entry to unapproved views; the combined benefits of the web as a discussion board for discussion approximately race.

These and different tales coalesce to bare the systemic styles of either suppression and chance which are making this present day a transitional second for the way forward for one in all our founding rules. Measured but sweeping, Freedom of Speech brilliantly finds the triumphs and demanding situations of defining and maintaining the bounds of loose expression in glossy America.

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Extra info for Freedom of Speech: Mightier Than the Sword

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21 Testing this approach by measuring the extent to which the media reproduce political messages also allows assessing the validity of alternative positions within the field. S. ”22 30 EXPLAINING NEWS Other studies have confirmed Bennett’s findings and refined the hypothesis by detailing the extent of the indexing of media coverage to domestic political debate in different circumstances. S. administration produced effects (“discernible patterns”) in the editorial contents of the two newspapers.

The judgment about sources’ newsworthiness is, however, affected by one more variable: the editorial policy of each news organization. Editorial Policy The editor (or editorial board) of each media organization sets the news agenda. This means establishing the relative size of the “newshole” for the different issues that are going to be covered in the news. This choice is made in accordance with the mission statement of the media organization, its focus of interest—for example, business or domestic affairs rather than foreign policy—and is made with economic considerations in mind: both budgets as well as anticipation of readers’ interests.

1. National interest determines the ratio between international and national sources within the coverage at the national level. The chart illustrates, as an example, the impact different national priorities have on both American and French coverage. As will be illustrated later in the analysis, the French government’s interest in developing countries and the Arab world leads to a greater selection of foreign sources in the coverage than in the United States. The administration’s focus on domestic politics, instead, translates into mainly national sources within the news.

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