Useful Databases
Try these specific databases to find current event materials (newspapers, magazines, etc.).
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America's Newspapers
With unmatched U.S. news content from local, regional, and national sources, this resource is the largest of its kind. Its diverse source types include printed and online newspapers, blogs, journals, newswires, broadcast transcripts and videos. Explore a specific issue or event through the detailed coverage provided by local reporting or compare a wide variety of viewpoints from across the country on topics such as politics, business, health, sports, cultural activities and people. -- NewsBank -
CQ Researcher
A database of in-depth, authoritative reports on a full range of political and social-policy issues extending back to 1923. Each report is footnoted and includes an overview, background section, chronology, bibliography and debate-style pro-con feature, plus tools to study the evolution of the topic over time. -- CQ Press -
Opposing Viewpoints in Context
Opposing Viewpoints In Context is an engaging online experience for those seeking contextual information and opinions on hundreds of today's hottest social issues. Drawing on the acclaimed Greenhaven Press series, the solution featurescontinuously updated viewpoints, topic overviews, full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, statistics, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites organized into a user-friendly portal experience. -- Gale Cengage
Search these online collections to find court cases related to media law.
Search by the name of the court case.
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casetext.comSubscription database. Allows for only 3 free case view. 14-day free trial optional.
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h2o.law.harvard.eduOpen Source materials provided through Harvard.
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law.justia.comJustia is proud to offer free access to federal and state court decisions, codes, and regulations. We also provide the full text of the Annotated US Constitution, as well as recent dockets and selected case filings from the US federal district and appellate courts.
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The First Amendment EncyclopediaThe First Amendment Encyclopedia, an unparalleled collection of more than 1,500 articles on First Amendment topics, court cases and history, written to be accessible by young people and the general public. An estimated 5,000 students and educators access the site each school day.
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Legal Information Institute - Cornell Law SchoolWe believe that everyone should be able to read and understand the laws that govern them, without cost. We carry out this vision by: Publishing law online, for free, and creating materials that help people understand law.
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Case BriefsDigital Study Supplement
Books about Media Law
Click on the links below to view resources about Media Law.
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Deciding Communication Law by This clearly written and well-focused volume combines concise decisions of the primary areas of communication law with the foundational case decisions in those domains. The text forgoes the tendency to provide encyclopedic treatment of all the relevant cases and focuses instead on the two or three cases most vital to an accurate and informed understanding of the current state of each field of communication law. Full-text rulings allow readers to immerse themselves in the law itself--to develop a feel for its complexity, its flexibility, and its language. Useful as a quick reference to the landmark rulings and the jurisprudence of communication law. - PublisherISBN: 9780805846980Publication Date: 2004-01-01 -
Speaking Our Minds by The issues addressed in these landmark cases cover crucial aspects of the First Amendment: freedom of expression, hate speech, libel, privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, promises of confidentiality to news sources, free press-fair trial, commercial speech, broadcast and cable television regulation, and new media. These narratives recount the events that initiated the court cases and follow the lead players through the various stages of the U.S. legal system. Excerpts of the court decisions are included at the conclusion of each chapter, and sidebars explain key terms, issues, and names that come up in the process.ISBN: 9780805837674Publication Date: 2002-03-01 -
Newsworthy by In 1952, the Hill family was held hostage by escaped convicts in their suburban Pennsylvania home. The family of seven was trapped for nineteen hours by three fugitives who treated them politely, took their clothes and car, and left them unharmed. The Hills quickly became the subject of international media coverage. Public interest eventually died out, and the Hills went back to their ordinary, obscure lives. Until, a few years later, the Hills were once again unwillingly thrust into the spotlight by the media—with a best-selling novel loosely based on their ordeal, a play, a big-budget Hollywood adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart, and an article in Life magazine. Newsworthy is the story of their story, the media firestorm that ensued, and their legal fight to end unwanted, embarrassing, distorted public exposure that ended in personal tragedy. This story led to an important 1967 Supreme Court decision—Time, Inc. v. Hill—that still influences our approach to privacy and freedom of the press. Newsworthy draws on personal interviews, unexplored legal records, and archival material, including the papers and correspondence of Richard Nixon (who, prior to his presidency, was a Wall Street lawyer and argued the Hill family's case before the Supreme Court), Leonard Garment, Joseph Hayes, Earl Warren, Hugo Black, William Douglas, and Abe Fortas. Samantha Barbas explores the legal, cultural, and political wars waged around this seminal privacy and First Amendment case. This is a story of how American law and culture struggled to define and reconcile the right of privacy and the rights of the press at a critical point in history—when the news media were at the peak of their authority and when cultural and political exigencies pushed free expression rights to the forefront of social debate. Newsworthy weaves together a fascinating account of the rise of big media in America and the public's complex, ongoing love-hate affair with the press.ISBN: 9780804797108Publication Date: 2017-01-18 -
Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open by Lee Bollinger is one of our foremost experts on the First Amendment--both an erudite scholar and elegant advocate. In this sweeping account, he explores the troubled history of a free press in America and looks toward the challenges ahead. The first amendment guaranteed freedom of the press in seemingly clear terms. However, over the course of American history, Bollinger notes, the idea of press freedom has evolved, in response to social, political, technological, and legal changes. It was not until the twentieth century that freedom of the press came to be understood as guaranteeing an'uninhibited, robust and wide-open'public discourse. But even during the twentieth century, government continually tried to erect barriers: the sedition laws of World War One, the use of libel law, the Pentagon Papers case, and efforts to limit press access to information. Bollinger utilizes this history to explore the meaning of freedom of the press in our globalized, internet-dominated era. As he shows, we have now entered uncharted territory. What does press freedom mean when our news outlets can instantaneously disseminate information throughout the world? When foreign media have immediate access to the American market? Bollinger stresses that even though the law will surely evolve in the coming years, we must maintain our commitment to a press that is'uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,'not only in America but everywhere. Given the new ability of foreign media to reach the United States via the Internet and vice versa, it is in America's national interest for press freedoms to expand overseas. While protecting the freedom of the press at home remains a crucial task, the next challenge is to help create a global public forum suitable for an increasingly interconnected world. Part of Oxford's landmark Inalienable Rights series, this book will set the agenda for how we think about the press in the twenty-first century.ISBN: 9780195304398Publication Date: 2010-01-15 -
Journalism under Fire by A healthy democracy requires vigorous, uncompromising investigative journalism. But today the free press faces a daunting set of challenges: in the face of harsh criticism from powerful politicians and the threat of lawsuits from wealthy individuals, media institutions are confronted by an uncertain financial future and stymied by a judicial philosophy that takes a narrow view of the protections that the Constitution affords reporters. In Journalism Under Fire, Stephen Gillers proposes a bold set of legal and policy changes that can overcome these obstacles to protect and support the work of journalists.Gillers argues that law and public policy must strengthen the freedom of the press, including protection for news gathering and confidential sources. He analyzes the First Amendment's Press Clause, drawing on older Supreme Court cases and recent dissenting opinions to argue for greater press freedom than the Supreme Court is today willing to recognize. Beyond the First Amendment, Journalism Under Fire advocates policies that facilitate and support the free press as a public good. Gillers proposes legislation to create a publicly funded National Endowment for Investigative Reporting, modeled on the national endowments for the arts and for the humanities; improvements to the Freedom of Information Act; and a national anti-SLAPP law, a statute to protect media organizations from frivolous lawsuits, to help journalists and the press defend themselves in court. Gillers weaves together questions of journalistic practice, law, and policy into a program that can ensure a future for investigative reporting and its role in our democracy.ISBN: 9780231168861Publication Date: 2018-08-07
