Journalism Ethics & First Amendment Law

(4 Credits)

This course is an introduction to how American constitutional law affects journalists and why that matters. It’s also a course about journalistic ethics and how such professional notions as fairness, objectivity, responsibility, and credibility intersect with law – and how they don’t. Other journalism coursework is about how journalists do things – how to report, write, edit; this course will often be about how they avoid problems. We will cover the law of the First Amendment, the values our system places on free expression, the imprecision of legal principles and the problem this poses for journalists (and their lawyers), the changing nature of journalism and the changing nature of law in the digital age. This is not a law course as such, but a survey of the protections and restrictions that the legal system places on journalists. And we will be mindful that legal constraints alone do not govern how a good journalist behaves. Careful and honorable and valuable journalism comes not only from mere compliance with civil and criminal requirements, but attention to ethical principles that transcend law or are outside its boundaries.