October 29, 1997
The Four Seasons Hotel
Washington, D.C.

Richard M. Schmidt, Jr. received The Media Institute's 1997 Freedom of Speech award. He is general counsel of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

I want to thank Geneva Overholser for the very generous introduction even though I know it is not deserved.

I am indeed honored by this award coming from that freedom fighting institution, the Media Institute, directed by the dedicated Patrick Maines, and assisted and abetted by the able Rick Kaplar.

It has been my privilege, if not always a pleasure, during the last four decades to be involved in a large segment of the First Amendment legal activity on behalf of the nation's press. I will try to set this in context because I find among the younger generation those who ask if I chose the trial strategy in the 1732 trial of John Peter Zenger or what I thought of the oral arguments in the case of Near v. Minnesota in 1931. I was not present on either occasion.

The late Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren ventured the opinion that the First Amendment to our Constitution would have not found public acceptance during our Bicentennial Year celebrating the adoption of the Constitution. I fear the same is true today.

I am certain most of you read Richard Harwood's recent provocative colunm in The Washington Post entitled "The Press and the People." Dick Harwood, a retired member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, stated "It is fortunate for the press in the United States that the voice of the people is not the voice of G od or the Supreme Court."

Harwood cites the study commissioned by ASNE in 1990 to determine public attitudes toward free speech and free press; which study found that in the abstract the American public, meaning adults, rates those freedoms as very precious rights. But, paradoxically, the American public, are equally willing to put severe res traints upon press and speech freedoms.

The ASNE findings were corroborated last fall in a study by the Lou Harris organization. Harwood points out the studies found that most Americans would license journalists, without making clear who would be the licensing authority. As Harwood stated "They would empower goverment entities to monitor the work of journalists for fairness and compel 'equal coverage on all sides of a controversial issue"'.

Both studies found the adult American public willing to limit and even prohibit forms of communications with which they do not agree.

Both studies found the fact that our First Amendment bestows the privilege of free speech and free press because both are essential for the working of a democratic republic seems lost on most members of the public.

It is my belief that two of our venerable institutions have saved our precious freedoms in this regard and those two are a free press and an independent judiciary.

Today, in the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana, the O.J. Simpson trial, and other newsworthy events, many persons, both in government and private citizens, are calling for a reappraisal of our constitutional guarantees and are asking for laws an d regulations to enforce "responsibility" and for increased "personal privacy." The people a bit schizophrenic, want news of others but privacy for themselves.

In this century we have witnessed, not only continued First Amendment interpretation by our judiciary but the creation of many new technologies which deserve First Amendment protection. Radio, television and other forms of electronic communication have already acquired much, but unfortunately not all, of the protection accorded the print media. Now we move into the world of cyberspace, computers websites and the Internet.

ASNE, under the direction of its current President, Sandra Mims Rowe, Editor of the Portland Oregonian, has launched a study to determine the "damaging erosion of our credibility."

Once again, the cry is heard that the press has gone "too far." Many demagogues are loose upon the land and are calling upon the public to rethink its position concerning these precious liberties.

Press "responsibility" was highlighted by Chief Justice Warren Burger, not exactly a radical jurist, writing for a unanimous court in the 1974 case of Miami Herald v. Tornillo, he stated, "A responsible press is a undoubtedly desirable goal, but press responsibility is not mandated by the Constitution and like many other virtues it cannot be legislated."

Please remember that no government really loves a free press and that includes our government. At best governments tolerate a free press and free speech.

The noted American author Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, what has been described "the best description of the elusive, yet, essential quality of the First Amendment in American life." Vonnegut wrote, "The First Amendment reads more like a dream than a law, and no other country has been crazy enough to include such a dream among its fundamental documents. I defend it because its been so successful for two centuries in preserving our freedom and increasing our vitality, knowing that all arguments in support of it are certain to sound absurd."

Richard Harwood concluded his colunm by saying that "press freedoms remain...as in the past, dependent not on the good will of the masses but on the goodwill and philosophical disposition of the nine men and women of the Supreme Court of the United States."

Again, I want to thank Patrick Maines and the Media Institute for this honor and to express to them how much I admire their dedication to the preservation of free speech of all kind, including commercial speech. Our rights of free speech and free press will continue only if all of us are ever diligent to fight the effort to control free speech and free press, no matter how well intentioned the proposers may be.

I commend to all who believe in free speech and free press the words of Judge Learned Hand, one of the great jurists of this century, "Liberty lies in the hearts and minds of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it."