The First Amendment

     If most people, including journalism advisers, do not know what the five rights of the First Amendment are, then how do you do a survey on the First Amendment?
   The survey by the Newseum Institute’s First Amendment Center, found “a growing majority of Americans say high school journalists should be free to explore controversial subjects without prior approval, but 38 percent say the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees, up 25 percent from the 2012 survey.”
    A little scary: only 68 percent said they agreed that public high school journalists should not need prior approval to explore controversial subjects, while 27 percent disagreed. In 2001, (feeling better) 58 percent said prior approval should be required, while 40 percent opposed the need to get approval in advance.
     Survey asked respondents what qualifies someone to be a “journalist.” Thirty-six percent said a journalist is someone who creates stories based on objective fact; 21 percent said a journalist is someone who works for an established news operation, 16 percent believe it is when an individual reports to an audience, and 14 percent of Americans said someone is a journalist when that person is paid to gather news. How does social media fit into that equation?

Jerry L. Miller
Sparks High School
Sparks, Nevada