Last week, a $1 million study sponsored by a group called John S. and James L. Knight Foundation made a lot of headlines when it found that, among other things, “more than one in three high school students said the First Amendment ‘goes too far’ in the rights it guarantees.” It seems that young Americans aren’t particularly interested in the freedom of the press, of religion, or their own right to question the government.
There doesn’t appear to be any data on high schoolers’ feelings on the issue in previous years. Without that data, this isn’t very useful information. In fact, I get the sense that this is one of those studies that people conduct and publicize just to get people talking about an issue everyone knew about in the first place. Still, assuming this is nothing new – that is, this has always been the sentiment among high schoolers toward the most important article in the Bill of Rights – there are troubling issues here worth discussing. If high schoolers don’t think the First Amendment is important, it stands to reason college students probably feel the same way. What is wrong with you people?
First off: Contrary to the language in the Constitution itself, there is really no such thing as an inaliable right. In fact, if a new government feels like it has to protect certain freedoms, you can bet that it’s exactly those freedoms that people have had to make do without at some point in history. Freedom, justice, democracy and yes, the freedom of expression are all just priorities that the founders felt particularly strongly about when they set up the government.
Now that the whole thing has become a living, breathing system, it’s important to protect our rights in terms of the legal machinery we’ve been given. And the First Amendment protects some very precious freedoms on an institutional, as well as a personal level. People are so jaded about the institution of the American media that I feel like I should go over this.
The Bill of Rights: Amendment Numero Uno:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The institutional component (the freedom of the press) is meant to guarantee that you have access to media that’s not controlled (at least directly) by the same people that run the government. Of course, that doesn’t mean that any media outlet, or any of the people working in the news business, is free of bias. It does mean that you are guaranteed more than just one, state run media like they have in China and North Korea, and like they had in the former Soviet Union.
When Chernobyl went critical in 1986, no one in Pripyat, the brand new suburban town hosting the reactor, even knew what was going on. The government held out hope that everything was going to be okay long after it was clear people were going to die. To this day, no one knows how many people perished immediately after the accident, and that doesn’t count the many cancer cases and birth defects that have followed.
The idea with an independent media is that you can make your own decisions if something serious goes down. It’s an important counter to that nasty tendency governments have of treating citizens like ants.
Personally, this is very important.
The personal component of the First is that it protects your right to disagree with what the government is doing (the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances). In some countries, you can be jailed or shot for one complaint about how the government is doing things. In America, you can make a lucrative film or book career doing just that.
When I started writing for the paper two and a half years ago, I wanted to be a tech writer. I am a computer geek, and I was not particularly interested in politics. Now that I have to write about general-interest stories, which are often political, I’ve been forced to think about this stuff.
That’s why, when I’m editing, I ruthlessly excise all instances of opinion in the news stories people write for the paper. By the time this stuff gets to you, it’s supposed to be scrubbed clean of personal and political bias. That is an ideal, of course, and between human error and differences of opinion, it doesn’t always work out that way (it never works out that way).
That’s why we print all letters we receive, as long as the writer identifies him or herself. If we didn’t do this, we’d be hypocrites. We are supposed to be all about the free expression of fact and opinion. As far as voices on campus, the school newspaper can’t help but be the 500-pound gorilla. The letter to the editor page is an acknowledgement of the power we wield as an established media outlet. So we bend over backwards to make sure voices dissenting against our own get a fair shake. Even if you’re not a journalist, the ideas behind the First Amendment should be central to the way you read this paper and live your life.
It’s disheartening to learn how few high school kids are clued in to this stuff. I jut hope they learn to value it at some point, or we’re in serious trouble.