Summary Of A First Amendment Blind Spot

A Fight for Freedom for Journalists
“A First Amendment Blind Spot” was published in The Wall Street Journal by Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. The author is a partner of the Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher LLP. He is also the co-chair of the International Women’s Media Foundation. Moreover, he was denominated by the National Law Journal as one of 100 most influential lawyers in America (“Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., JD Biography”). In “A First Amendment Blind Spot”, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. draws the attention of journalists’ freedom of the press to the Supreme Court; and convinces the Court to hear out James Risen’s case by composing a supportive claim, providing accurate evidence and affirming his logical opinion. To summarize, a journalist named
The author uses Supreme Court’s cases that happened in the past to boost the logical in his argument. He also sums up the years of the cases took place from Mr. Risen’s to further enhance his argument. For example, Boutrous illustrates “This is year also the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark New York Times v. Sullivan decision, which protect journalists from spurious defamation claims as a means for fostering the “principle that debate on public issue should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open” (Boutrous). He continues on stating, “But the Court has repeatedly spurned cases brought by the over the past decade…” (Boutrous). The author borrows the Supreme Court’s case happened in the past to demonstrate that even though the Court says to protect journalists’ right, they still reject cases from journalists. By offering cases that occurred before Mr. Risen, the author was able to intensify the attention focused on journalist’ right to the Supreme Court. Similar to the example provided by the author earlier in this essay, the use of Supreme Court’s cases highlights the inequity of the Supreme Court towards