International Media Law Reform and First Amendment Agnosticism: Review of Lee Bollinger's 'Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide Open: A Free Press for a New Century'
Federal Communications Law Journal, Vol. 63, No. 765, 2011
Elon University Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2013-09
14 Pages Posted: 13 Jul 2013 Last revised: 26 Jul 2013
Date Written: May 1, 2011
Abstract
Scholars and practitioners in communications law and the First Amendment will recognize Lee Bollinger's status as our most preeminent and thoughtful writer on press freedom. His latest effort, Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century, is a slim, elegant, and forceful piece of advocacy, taking its title from the most celebrated line in First Amendment jurisprudence, and perhaps in all of constitutional law. In the book, Bollinger turns his focus to international law, and on how “[t]o project a U.S. free press system onto the world,” so as “to create a global system of a free press for the emerging global society.” In broad strokes, Bollinger offers a compelling argument for the need for universal free press principles in the era of globalization, as well as the means by which to achieve them. But in his argument's particulars, Bollinger presents an incomplete analysis and an overriding irony. The incompleteness is in his failure to discuss a number of areas in which other countries' conceptions of the press are irreconcilable with our own, or how to resolve these differences. And the irony is that many of the measures Bollinger proposes that other countries take in adopting First Amendment values would themselves likely not survive First Amendment scrutiny here in the United States.
Keywords: International Law, First Amendment, Media Law, Constitutional Law
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation