CHAPEL HILL — Journalists need to defend their First Amendment Rights in order to protect them, or “there’s not going to be a torch to pass to the next generation.” That’s the assessment of one of North Carolina’s leading free press advocates.
“I hope people don’t look back years from now and say, ‘Those guys were surrounded, and they all went down,’” First Amendment lawyer John Bussian said during a free press forum in Chapel Hill on March 6. The event was organized by the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
Bussian compared today’s journalists to the defenders of the Alamo. The forum at the University of North Carolina was scheduled on the 170th anniversary of the last day of battle at that Texas fortress.
“One hundred seventy years ago, people were yelling, ‘Remember the Alamo,’” he said. “We live in a society that has free press rights like no place else, but if they’re not going to be protected and defended and asserted, they’re not going to be there.”
A worldwide debate about free speech took on new significance at the Chapel Hill campus last month. An editorial cartoonist depicted the prophet Muhammad in the February 9 edition of the student-run Daily Tar Heel.
Wearing a turban, the cartoon prophet stood between two mosque windows. One window outlined a Danish flag flying in a peaceful scene. The other window depicted violence that erupted in Europe in the wake of a dozen Muhammad cartoons originally printed in a Danish newspaper.
The UNC Muslim Students Association lodged a complaint about the student cartoon. A dozen association members staged a peaceful sit-in at the newspaper office February 20. None of them showed up for the forum. They missed Daily Tar Heel editor Ryan Tuck’s defense of the cartoon.
“Cartoons in newspapers daily force the limits of freedom of speech,” Tuck said. “They’re the acid paper of the First Amendment. They’re pushing that limit. They’re challenging belief systems. They’re sparking discussion. That’s what I look for in a newspaper. And that’s what I want a newspaper that I run to do.”
Tuck’s decision drew praise from a fellow panelist. Carolina Journal editor Richard Wagner described his reaction to the worldwide controversy over the Danish cartoons. “I think it’s alarming that so many newspapers chose to self-censor,” Wagner said. “Thomas Jefferson said that’s why they made the First Amendment the first amendment. It’s the most important one. It’s the one that ensures our democracy remains strong and vital.”
Wagner included one of the Danish cartoons in a recent column. “If we don’t exercise that right, then we surely will lose it.”
Muslim students were not alone in skipping the free speech forum. Panelists addressed only a handful of students in the lecture hall. “Most people take freedom of the press for granted,” said Shannon Blosser of the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
“They don’t see that it’s possible that we could lose these freedoms,” Blosser added. “I think when people see those rights taken away, that’s when people will start to show and take these things seriously.”
Bussian led the panel’s discussion of current threats to the First Amendment. They include a recent U.S. Appeals Court ruling that restricts free press rights for college newspapers that accept campus funding.
Newspapers in general also face increased threats of costly lawsuits, Bussian said. “Trial lawyers across America routinely sue the press for punitive damages for covering issues that are of clear public importance, for doing nothing more than publishing stories about matters that are important to the future of the public.”
Panelists took comfort from the attitude expressed by Tuck, the student editor. “I believe in unfettered freedom of the press, an unabashed and unfettered First Amendment.
“To the hundreds – maybe even thousands of people at this point – who have called or e-mailed about the cartoon, I’ve responded to each one the same way,” he added. “When it comes to the First Amendment, your interpretation is your opinion. I’m thankful that you’re allowed to have it. This is my interpretation. I’m grateful that we’re in a place where we have the opportunity to disagree.”