The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) has just closed out six seasons of the hit comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie about the life of muslims living in rural Canada in a post-9/11 era. NPR’s On The Media did an interesting segment on the show several years ago.
Below is an interview with the cast and creator of the show to celebrate the end of the series.
Want to see how different media outlets are cover news from around the world? Here’s your chance to compare and contrast for yourself: Sounds like that could be a great media literacy assignment…. Suggestions of sources to add or potential assignments? Leave a comment!
High school and middle school students get expelled for things they post online through social media during non-school hours. Is that violating their free speech rights? Take a look at a few examples:
Barbara Ringer, who went to work for the Copyright Office in the Library of Congress in 1949 right after she graduated from law school, had as much influence on American copyright law as anyone in the twentieth century. Read the following two remembrances of her from the Washington Post to learn about how the first woman to head the U.S. Copyright Office completely revamped American copyright law and was a strong civil rights advocate.
Updated 10/14 with obituary for Fred Phelps
In March of 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of the Phelps family, operating as the Westboro Baptist Church (although they have no connection to any of the Baptist denominations), to picket the funerals of American servicemen and women. The family typically carries signs proclaiming “GOD HATES FAGS” and “THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS.” The family pickets funerals in order to draw attention to their arguments that God is punishing the United States for tolerating homosexuality.
Here are several readings for you on the case:
When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of the Westboro Baptist Church to picket the funerals of U.S. servicemen and women, one case that came up was that of Falwell v. Flynt. Here’s a bit of a refresher for those who don’t remember the details:
In 1983 the Reverend Jerry Falwell was in Washington, D.C., for a news conference when a reporter rushed up to him carrying the November 1983 issue of Hustler magazine and asked, “Reverend Falwell, have you seen this?” The reporter was referring to a crude parody of a Campari ad that portrayed a drunken Falwell losing his virginity to his mother in an outhouse. Under the ad was the statement, “Ad parody—not to be taken seriously.” The Falwell ad parodied a series of Campari ads that featured celebrities using sexually suggestive language to describe the “first time” they had tasted Campari.
Falwell was outraged by the ad, not only because it insulted him but also because it attacked his mother. Describing the ad as “the most hurtful, damaging, despicable, low-type, personal attack that I can imagine one human being can inflict upon another,” he filed suit against famed publisher and pornographer Larry Flynt, asking for $45 million for libel (publishing false and defamatory statements about him), the improper use of his name and picture in the ad, and the infliction of “severe emotional anguish and distress.”
In the initial trial, the jury did not award Falwell damages for injury to his reputation because, they said, no reasonable person would believe the outrageous claims in the parody ad. The judge dismissed the portion of the suit dealing with the improper use of Falwell’s name and picture, ruling that as a public figure Falwell could not prevent the use of his name and image for noncommercial purposes.
However, the jury awarded him $200,000 in damages for the intentional infliction of emotional distress because it was clear that Flynt wanted to hurt Falwell.
After an appellate court upheld the verdict, Flynt appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Although Flynt was known for his outrageous behavior and was not popular with mainstream publishers, numerous groups advocating freedom of the press filed amicus briefs in support of him; they included several newspaper owners, press associations, and the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Also supporting Flynt was HBO, which was looking to protect the stand-up comics featured on the cable network.
On February 24, 1988, in an 8–0 vote, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s verdict, ruling that the courts could not protect a public figure from emotional distress, even from “speech that is patently offensive and intended to inflict emotional injury.”
The Court ruled that given a choice between protecting a public figure from emotional distress and protecting free speech rights, it would support free speech.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist acknowledged that the ad was “doubtless gross and repugnant in the eyes of most,” but said that political cartoons often go beyond the limits of good manners and taste. He saw no way to distinguish between proper and improper satire or between fair and unfair comment and criticism. The Court ruled that the only way a public figure or official could win a decision for intentional infliction of emotional distress would be if false statements had been made with knowledge that the “statement was false or reckless disregard as to whether it was true.”
This was the central point of the Flynt decision—that even something mean-spirited and cruel is still legitimate opinion and commentary, as long as it is a statement of opinion and not a statement of fact. Flynt explained the significance of the decision from the publisher’s point of view in an interview:
Had those decisions been allowed to stand, it would have meant that you would no longer need to prove libel to collect damages. All you would have to do is prove intentional infliction of emotional distress. Well, you know, any political cartoonist or editorial writer wants to inflict emotional distress. That’s their business.
In a strange ending to this case, Falwell, who passed away on May 15, 2007, and Flynt developed a relatively civil relationship in recent years, appearing in debates and on television together. On one occasion, Falwell even accepted an airplane ride home from Flynt following a joint speaking engagement.
The conflict between Larry Flynt and Jerry Falwell highlights the central conflicts in American media law:
When the movie The People versus Larry Flynt was released, Flynt and the Reverend Jerry Falwell appeared together on CNN’s Larry King Live.
Wasn’t the Fairness Doctrine killed 25 years ago? Yes, but until August of 2011, the rules were still on the books. The FCC finally got rid of more than 80 media industry rules.
Does this mean that popular radio show hostscan finally stop claiming the federal government is bringing these rules back? Probably not..
Wonkbook’s Dylan Matthews has a clear summary of the importance of the death of the Fairness Doctrine.
There’s been a long debate in the United States whether still, movie or television cameras belong in the courtrooms. TV cameras have become a common feature in many local, state, and appellate courts, but as of this writing, the Supreme Court has said an emphatic “no” to cameras of any sort covering their proceedings. Here are links to several articles on cameras in the courtrooms:
UPDATED: Couple of readings on photography and privacy:
Is spending money on behalf of a candidate or an issue the same as speaking out in favor or in opposition to it? According the the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, it is.
In the case, a nonprofit company sued to be able to run a documentary film on cable television that some saw as a thinly disguised anti-Hillary Clinton political ad. The FEC said the film couldn’t be aired because the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law prohibited corporate funded commercials for-or-against a presidential candidate less than 30 days before the election.
Citizen’s United appealed the ruling, and the United States Supreme Court ruled that organizations such as corporations and labor unions, as well as individuals, could give money in unlimited amounts to political action committees (PACs). These so-called superPACs could bundle together contributions to either support or oppose a particular candidate or issue. The one caveat is that the committees are not allowed to directly coordinate their activities with those of a candidate’s official campaign.
How separate these are is a matter of some debate, with top campaign officials oftentimes being on the steering committees for the associated superPAC.
James Bopp, a conservative activist lawyer, argues that the court’s decision makes it possible for individuals and organizations to create more political speech through their spending. As an example, multimillionaire Sheldon Adelson helped keep Newt Gingrich’s primary run for the Republican nomination going in 2012 by making a $10 million donation to Gingrich’s superPAC. Other supporters of the decision argue that the ads supported by the superPACs create a better informed public.
Before the Citizen’s United case, an individual could spend unlimited money directly on advertising supporting or attacking a candidate, but he or she couldn’t give that money to a political action committee.
Critics of the ruling argue that it puts almost unlimited political power in the hands of those who have the most money to spend.
You can listen to the Bopp interview here:
