This is pretty frightening:
One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today. The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get "government approval" of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.
Asked whether the press enjoys "too much freedom," not enough or about the right amount, 32% say "too much," and 37% say it has the right amount. Ten percent say it has too little.
The survey of First Amendment rights was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and conducted last spring by the University of Connecticut. It also questioned 327 principals and 7,889 teachers. The survey "confirms what a lot of people who are interested in this area have known for a long time"...Kids aren't learning enough about the First Amendment in history, civics or English classes.
Yes, but don't these kids read blogs? If nothing else, the blogosphere is about as fine a lesson in free speech as one can get. Or even LiveJournal.
I'm being facetious, of course, but only partially. What's more, it's very hard to believe that mere ignorance of the particulars of the First Amendment leads to not only the assumption that the government can interfere with journalism, but that it should. That second assumption smacks more to me of a an overfamiliarity with speech codes and politcally-correct educrats who spend far too much time demonizing those who don't the party lines.
Editor and Publisher also covered this story:
The study also revealed that the more students were exposed to First Amendment and new media courses in the classroom, the more involved they were in student journalism. For example, among those students who had taken First Amendment or other press-related courses, 87% believed people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions, while only 68% of those who had not taken such classes shared the belief.
Again, I say: Blogs. The wave of the future. Hope HTML programming is included in those student journalism classes; if it isn't, students should branch out from the "school newspaper" model. One of the reasons those newspapers might be biting the dust in such numbers is because many people, young or old, get their news from alternative sources nowadays.
Posted by kswygert at January 31, 2005 05:06 PM