Your First Amendment Right to Media Diversity

The risk that media consolidation poses to a democratic society and to the First Amendment isn't a new fear. Here's what the U.S. Supreme Court said in a 1945 decision in the case of Associated Press v. United States No. 57:

"That Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society. Surely a command that the government itself shall not impede the free flow of ideas does not afford nongovernmental combinations a refuge if they impose restraints upon that constitutionally guaranteed freedom. Freedom to publish means freedom for all, and not for some. Freedom to publish is guaranteed by the Constitution, but freedom to combine to keep others from publishing is not. Freedom of the press from governmental interference under the First Amendment does not sanction repression of that freedom by private interests."

Read the full decision and much more about media consolidation on the website of the Center for Digital Democracy, www.democraticmedia.org.