I have no idea if this new story in the Hartford Courant is accurate, but it certainly raises all sorts of interesting issues. The Herald, by the way, is owned by the same company that owns The Bristol Press.
My initial thought is that if the government has the power to seize a newspaper's building, then the First Amendment doesn't mean much.
*******
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
15 comments:
Stewart said that if the negotiations with JRC continue to bog down, the city will take steps to seize the property through eminent domain
*************************
hmmmm .... do you think the press might be wondering if they should have defended that little old lady on middle street that Bristol stole her estate from ??
This has nothing to do with the first ammendment. It's a revitalization effort.
The Herald can move. It's not like it's someones home that is being taken. They can even negotiate with the Mayor to allow them to have space in the new plan.
It has everything to do with the First Amendment. If a government can say it's taking a newspaper property for "economic development," and has enough sense to stick to the story, then it has the power to cripple or destroy a paper that politicians don't like. Imagine if Nixon could have thrown The Washington Post out of its offices to make way for a new parking lot or something.
Yes, it's true that a paper can move, but eminent domain could easily be used as a hammer to try to force favorable coverage.
It doesn't sit well with me and I'm skeptical that it would pass constitutional muster.
Steve:
Your early training as a journalist taught you to hate “Da Man” and to seriously question, if not despise, the entire military industrial complex in America. Thus I am sympathetic to your leftist leanings; they are a result of conditioning early on. But let’s look at the facts.
The First Amendment guarantees the right to Free Speech, but thanks to you and the lefties who see the constitution as a living, breathing, evolving document, the Supreme Court has imposed some limitations on free speech. You can’t yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater, you can sell newspapers containing any opinion you want to include, but not on the median strip on I-84. You can opine but you cannot libel. There are reasonable restrictions on free speech.
What you are talking about in New Britain is a building, specifically a manufacturing building, if they actually print there. It doesn’t create free speech; it creates a medium upon which free speech is printed. The First Amendment was not written to protect buildings, or newspaper boxes or hawkers along the highway. It was intended to allow people the right to express themselves freely and to share those thoughts with others who share the same basic freedoms.
As a continuum to your thought, that newspaper buildings are protected as bastions of free speech, anyone could claim that their right to build anything they want, anywhere they want, at any time they want is their expression of their free speech. It doesn’t hold up.
A government entity has a right to claim eminent domain against a print sop, even a newspaper print shop. It could take a house, a hospital, a dentist’s office or anything else just as easily. That taking is not a taking of your First Amendment rights, it is a taking of the bricks and mortar and land upon which free speech was printed or distribution. You and the New Britain Herald still have your rights under the constitution, even your right to lambaste the government entity that did the taking.
Further, you have the right to rail against the weak, spineless legislators in Hartford, who despite Kelo and Bugryn, have refused to limit a municipality’s right to use eminent domain.
Richard Nixon? Fortunately for the Washington Post, the District of Columbia controls the real estate, or Nixon might well have tried to put them out of business. The Bristol Press should be grateful that Bill Stortz never exercised eminent domain against the Press building.
Journalists can easily wrap themselves in the First amendment but when journalists go bad and plagiarize or simply make up stories and sources, there are consequences. The First Amendment doesn’t protect your building, your house, your car or your family any more that it protects mine. Journalists are not a protected class in this country. Free speech has limits.
P.S. Time to let go of the old Nixon stuff. Incidentally, those two journalists reaped a lifetime of benefits out of their Watergate stories. But that was a long time ago Big Fella.
Re: 11:19 and Noon Bloggers
I agree with one of you.
This could be the most lucid, comprehensive and sensible display of comments I have read on this blog since its inception, finally.
This is what I had hoped it would be and possibly, just possibly we have a beginning.
Yes, it is nice to have a reasonable, rational, intelligent comment from someone, even though the poster doesn't agree with me.
I do have to counter, though, that my father was a career Air Force officer and my brother served in the Army. I don't despise the military. I grew up in it.
And I don't even hate "Da Man." I've worked for the federal government -- during summers in college and law school -- and on Capitol Hill. I know lots of political leaders and haven't found any reason to hate the vast majority of them. I actually hold the oddball notion that many of them, from both parties, are actually trying to serve the public.
Of course, it is my role as a journalist to question them seriously, so I do. But that's a far cry from a reflexive disgust with those in power.
What's more, I actually side more with the constitutional literalists than those who see the Constitution as a "living, breathing, evolving" document. I generally have a respect for words that goes beyond any passing political fancy.
That is one reason I firmly believe the government has zero right to restrict a free press. That's what it says in the First Amendment and that's what I believe it means, which is why I'm disturbed by Mayor Stewart's threat.
Steve, I think you view on the issue might be tainted by your personal attachment.
The Herald is no different than any other for-profit business. It's subject to eminent domain for the sake of revitalization just like any other business.
What if it was a thriving shoe store? Does that mean that the City is infringing on peoples rights to purchase footwear?
You might want to separate yourself from the personal aspect. This could be good for the Herald and allow them to find a better location.
Golly Steve, they might even move to Bristol.
Dam Republicans.
Steve, it sickens me that you have to defend yourself for sticking up for that loathsome rag in New Britain. Your bloggie readers who have posted don't get it, but I do. You are talking about a town's newspaper, not the Herald specifically, though I'm sure you can't say that, given where your paycheck comes from.
Of course it is different with a newspaper.
As much as that paper disgusts me, I agree that the mayor is using a bullying tactic designed to weaken and destroy the Fourth Estate.
What matters is not that it's a crappy paper. What is saddest is that the mayor in New Britain apparently views the town's newspaper as so inconsequential to the community that he can threaten it and without anyone caring at all.
That's a sad statement about the Herald and about New Britain and also about what happens when there's non investment in a community newspaper.
Bristol is lucky to have someone with your talent at the Press. I shudder to think what drivel would be filling the space between the ads if you left.
As a loyal reader, I thank you.
This would never happen in Bristol with the Press the way it is today, an active, engaged part of the commuity.
So I guess the newspapers can do what they want and aren't the same as anyone else. What happens when they get something wrong? A little teeny retraction on a page no one reads. They hide behind the first ammendment all the time. "Freedom of the Press" ( and no one else)
12:00 said:
"Further, you have the right to rail against the weak, spineless legislators in Hartford, who despite Kelo and Bugryn, have refused to limit a municipality’s right to use eminent domain."
And you, my friend, have bought into the hype over Kelo and Buggryn. There are and always have been severe constraints on towns' use of the eminent domain tool. And the US Supreme Court, which is dominated by rightwing conservatives, would not have upheld what New London did if it were unconstitutional.
Go Tim Stewert if you can't beat em' seize em
You can call the Hartford Politicians names only cause you know them. And the faceless and nameless ones like you are the real "Spineless" ones.
Post a Comment