| abstract
| - The United States is one of the few countries where the government is specifically prohibited from licensing the press or reporters or otherwise shutting down a newspaper simply because they don't like the content. While the average Joe knows their rights are protected by the court case of Miranda v. Arizona, most people are unaware of one of the pivotal cases denying press censorship in the United States: Near v. Minnesota, which basically said the government can't shut down a newspaper no matter how much it finds its content objectionable. Of course, freedom of the press is guaranteed in the first amendment to the Constitution. Note that when the term "licensing" is used in this article, it is in the sense that you have to have a license to be a doctor, or a hairdresser, or to drive a car. But a newspaper can't be required to have that sort of a license. They can still be required to have a business license (such as is used for local taxes) and to operate their newspaper according to zoning laws. These laws requiring a license must basically be what is called "ministerial" in nature; as long as they pay a reasonable business license tax they can't be refused a license. Some places, such as Los Angeles, don't even require newspapers to have a business license in order to avoid a potential First Amendment challenge. In the U.S., over and over again, the courts have held that anything a reporter finds in public reports or in the audience in open court is fair game to report, and when courts have issued orders to the press not to publish things happening in the open courtroom - or found newspapers in contempt for publishing what they were told not to - the appeals courts have consistently found those restrictions to violate the First Amendment. These protections on the press are not uniform in North America, they generally apply only to newspapers (and magazines) in the U.S. In Canada, courts can impose prohibitions on the press. This is why, when there is a major criminal case, copies of American newspapers reporting on Canadian crimes being tried will be confiscated at the border. The Canadian newspapers will have already censored the story. As a result, newspapers (and other media) in the United States are extremely vigilant in covering crimes, political misconduct and scandal, free in the knowledge that, absent malice they can basically say almost anything about a politician and not only will they not be shut down, it's highly unlikely that they'll be sued. If you sue a newspaper for its reporting, you have to be able to prove that it knowingly printed false information, or did so not caring what the fallout would be. And in the US, the truth is an absolute defense - if the newspaper can show that what they reported is factually true, it's pretty much the end of the trial. A Florida law made it a crime to report the name of an alleged rape victim. A newpaper got the name of the victim from court records that the court failed to keep sealed. They reported it, and were prosecuted for violating the law. The U.S. Supreme Court held that law to be unconstitutional. Florida Star v. B.J.F., 491 U.S. 524 (1989). There are a few exceptions for "national security" issues, in that basically it's illegal to 'out' a hidden CIA agent; this was the case of the "Valerie Plame" scandal in the 2000s. So excepting this limited issue, it basically means the press has the (virtually) unlimited right to report any public fact without censorship or fear of prosecution. That doesn't mean American reporters have carte blanche to do anything to report on a story. Depending on what has happened, if a reporter breaks a law covering a story, they sometimes will be prosecuted, especially if the incident is embarrassing. There was one case where a reporter showed how weak the Los Angeles County Welfare Department was in checking on the background of applicants that he was able to apply for -- and receive -- welfare checks. The district attorney originally threatened to prosecute the reporter (for welfare fraud), until he realized that it would give even more publicity to the story and make the county look worse.
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