Ombudsman columns
Page 2 of 6
Pinning a label on violence in media
Ombudsman Someone should be keeping track of all the proposals coming out of Congress to regulate what the rest of us can see, hear and say. It is a long and scary list.
06.23.00
Plugging a leak by puncturing freedom
Ombudsman In Washington, where information is power, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence proposes to keep secrets by jailing those who talk to the press.
06.16.00
Why a bad deal by the press is a big deal to the public
Ombudsman We've come to expect a certain amount of silliness from television news operations.
06.01.00
Playboy signal-bleed case never should have been a case
Ombudsman Perhaps only die-hard First Amendment advocates welcomed yesterday's Supreme Court ruling that Congress violated our constitutional rights in trying to regulate sex-oriented cable channels, but all of us should be outraged that this silly, costly battle had to be fought in the first place.
05.23.00
The folly of reading the mind of the reader
Ombudsman Gershon Legman was a man of great accomplishments and interests, best remembered as the blood enemy of censors and their collaborators.
05.18.00
Don't just condemn censors, confront them
Ombudsman Trying to see 'the censors' side of things' only emboldens them; librarians, schools and others charged with keeping the flame of intellectual freedom must stand up to censorship, not try to accommodate it.
05.10.00
Censorship at the source: the worst kind
Ombudsman Maximum access to government information is a fundamental right and a shared responsibility of both the press and the public.
05.02.00
Free air time for candidates carries a high price
Ombudsman 'Money … is not speech,' Justice Stephens wrote in his concurrence to the majority opinion in Nixon v. Shrink, the recent Supreme Court decision upholding a Missouri law's limits on political campaign contributions.
04.07.00
The magic of movies vs. the mind of the censor
Ombudsman It's easy to dismiss Sunday night's annual Academy Awards event as a celebration of celebrity and an exercise in hype, ego and excess. It was all that and a made-for-television ratings grab, too.
03.28.00
The silencing of a courtroom critic
Ombudsman Scott Huminski is what you might call a 'citizen-reporter.' Until a year ago, he was a constant and careful observer of court proceedings in Rutland, Vt., passing on to the public his thoughts about judges and their rulings.
03.21.00
Access and technology: Change as an excuse for closure
Ombudsman Information is the currency of democracy.
03.13.00
Surfing the Net for compulsions and addictions
Ombudsman Just when we thought we had run out of things to worry about, psychologists at Stanford and Duquesne universities last week alerted us to a new menace: hundreds of thousands of 'cybersex compulsives' wandering about the land untethered.
03.06.00
Target practice on the First Amendment
Ombudsman Remember the Juvenile Justice bill? That's the legislation that members of Congress festooned with overwrought proposals in an attempt to appear to be doing something about the high school shooting tragedy in Littleton, Colo. The bill faded from the public mind after contentious arguments broke out over gun proposals.
02.28.00
Shut up and eat everything on your plate
Ombudsman 'Free speech not only lives, it rocks!' TV talk show queen Oprah Winfrey exulted after a federal judge dismissed a multimillion lawsuit against her by Texas cattlemen outraged by remarks she and a guest made on one of her shows. That was in February 1998.
02.21.00
Forget banning books, let's burn the library
Ombudsman The library is a monument to all the best impulses in the human mind and spirit. It is a tribute to wisdom and understanding. No community is complete without one.
02.14.00
Openness, order must coexist in court
Ombudsman For two centuries, the nine justices of the Supreme Court have represented the judicial branch of our government as the president of the United States delivered the annual State of the Union address.
01.31.00
The media: bells, whistles and flashing lights
Ombudsman If you thought that news about the media couldn't get any more bizarre, you haven't been paying attention.
01.26.00
Free speech is not always just about the First Amendment
Ombudsman Atlanta Braves' pitcher John Rocker is catching a lot of flack from minority groups, the commissioner of baseball, his boss, his teammates, the mayor of New York, and just about everyone else with a conscience or a microphone. There's even a special Web site devoted to flaming Rocker.
01.11.00
First Amendment: Surviving Year 2000 challenges
Ombudsman Since the World War I era, First Amendment freedoms have been firmly internalized by our social, political and legal systems. But the eternal urge to censor speech has not been tamed. Thus, Americans pay lip service to free speech but don't trust it any further than the tips of their own tongues.
01.03.00
Press faces new year of old problems
Ombudsman Ethical lapses, adverse court decisions, public hostility, media-reform proposals threaten press's independence.
12.28.99
Page last updated: 5/2/2013 1:01:07 PM
