President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, when U.S. military forces were attacked at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, "the day that shall live in infamy." That appellation has stuck for more than 60 years. One wonders how many contemporary Americans will remember September 11, 2001, in the same way. The world changed that day for most people living in the United States. And it is still changing today.
The terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., a war in South Asia, and mass media law seem to have little in common. But the impact of the events of the autumn of 2001 left a clear impression on the intersections of patriotism and free speech, the press and the government, the First Amendment and national security. Many Americans expressed shock at the way in which the government, schools and social commentators reacted to those who legitimately questioned the national interest in a war in Afghanistan or the manner in which the government choose to battle the threat of future terrorist acts. For example, television host Bill Maher was attacked for suggesting that the terrorists who died for their beliefs were not cowards; writer Susan Sontag was publicly chastised for calling the terrorists attacks a consequence of this nation’s actions and alliances; and a few college and university faculty members were disciplined for criticizing U.S. policy. The government imposed censorship practices upon reporters who sought to cover both the terrorist attacks and the war, practices that seemed unAmerican to those whose history of the nation commences with the angry war protests of the Sixties and Seventies and free-wheeling reporting that focused our attention on the fighting in Vietnam.
But what happened after September 11 is really quite representative of this nation’s longer history, of our response to other crises that have seemingly threatened the United States. Rightly or wrongly, and that is for each reader to decide, our rights to speak our minds and truthfully report all the news, our rights to privacy and to travel have all been sharply limited in previous times when the United States went to war. What has happened since 9/11 is more typical of the way the nation has always responded to a war than the way the government and the people reacted during the Vietnam war.
Censorship of the press in the name of national security, limits on access to information, new laws that permit government greater intrusion into private lives all manifested themselves in the wake of the terrorist attacks in early autumn. The situation is fluid; the best textbook is probably a good newspaper. I have attempted to include as much material on these matters in the text as both space and deadlines permit. But the world of mass media laws has changed in other ways as well in the past two years. Major changes in telecommunications regulation have been generated by the courts and the Federal Communications Commission. What was once a comprehensive set of rules that governed broadcasting has shrunk to the point that they can be covered in a single chapter in this book rather than the two chapters in previous editions. More courts have faced the complex task of applying mass communications law to the Internet, and many of those decisions are reported here as well. There is not a chapter in this 2003-2004 edition that hasn’t been modified through the addition of new material, or the deletion of information about laws that have changed or become less relevant. The new edition is about 35 pages shorter than the previous one.
Scores of people helped the author generate this text. In an era of giant media corporations, McGraw-Hill has demonstrated a strong personal touch which all authors greatly appreciate. My thanks go to Valerie Raymond, Karen Nelson, Karen Dorman and Jennifer Van Hove among others. Several of my colleagues who teach communications law offered valuable suggestions for this revision. I want to thank Lyombe Eko, University of Maine - Orono; Herb Strentz, Drake University; Thomas N. Osran, Columbia College - Chicago; Joel Gambill, Arkansas State University - Jonesboro; Eddith Dashiell, Ohio University - Athens; James F. Scotton, Marquette University. Suggestions from persons who use the book are invaluable to any author preparing a revision. Special thanks to Clay Calvert at Pennsylvania State University for generating an innovative student study guide on CD-ROM. I am certain this will prove to be a great boon to all who use the text. Finally, I want to thank my wife Diann for all her encouragement and help over the many years this book has been published. Writing is a solitary and often lonely task. Without her support the publishing life of Mass Media Law might have ended years ago.
2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education