ENGL 1010: English Composition I, Prof. Sweet

In determining the news that's fit to print, U.S. courts have traditionally declined to second-guess professional journalists. But in an age when news, entertainment, and new media outlets are constantly pushing the envelope of acceptable content, the consensus over press freedoms is eroding. The First Amendment Bubble examines how unbridled media are endangering the constitutional privileges journalists gained in the past century

The public sphere is said to be in crisis. Dumbing down, tabloidization, infotainment, and spin are alleged to contaminate it, adversely affecting the quality of political journalism and of democracy itself. There is a pervasive pessimism about the relationship between the media and democracy, and widespread concern for the future of the political process.

While talking heads debate the media's alleged conservative or liberal bias, award-winning journalist Bonnie Anderson knows that the problem with television news isn't about the Left versus the Right--it's all about the money. From illegal hiring practices to ethnocentric coverage to political cheerleading, News Flash exposes how American broadcast conglomerates' pursuit of the almighty dollar consistently trumps the need for fair and objective reporting. Along the way to the bottom line, the proud tradition of American television journalism has given way to an entertainment-driven industry that's losing credibility and viewers by the day.

Celebrities are routinely subjected to stalking, harassment, invasion of privacy, and defamation. These occurrences are often violations of their constitutional rights.

Despite the central role of punditry in our contemporary media environment, research has been slow to examine punditry on cable news. Deregulation, the advent of cable television, and the rise of a twenty-four-hour news cycle have dramatically transformed the structure and content of news, paving the way for political pundits to come to the forefront.

Assessing how far the political, cultural, and professional contexts of media coverage have been affected by 9/11 and its aftermath, the volume also explores media representations of the `War on Terrorism′ from regional and international perspectives, including new actors such as the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera - the pan-Arabic television network. One key theme of the book is how new information and communication technologies are influencing the production, distribution, and reception of media messages