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Copyright is at once an engine of free expression and impediment to free expression. Copyright law underwrites much literature, journalism, music, art, and film. Yet copyright often stands in the way of speech that would build upon existing expression to convey new messages and artistic perspectives.

In a seminal 1970 article, Melville Nimmer, the leading copyright and First Amendment scholar of his day, aptly termed the copyright‐free speech conflict a “largely ignored paradox.” Yet today that conflict has come virulently to the fore, and copyright is increasingly chastised as a tool of private censorship.

Why has that happened? What values and practices does the copyright‐free speech conflict put at stake? How should the conflict be resolved?

These are the principal questions this book seeks to answer. This book explores the copyright‐free speech conflict as it cuts across traditional and digital media alike. In so doing, it juxtaposes the dramatic expansion of copyright holders' proprietary control against individuals' newly found ability to digitally cut, paste, edit, remix, and distribute popular sound recordings, movies, TV programs, graphics, and texts the world over. It tests whether, in light of these developments and others, copyright still serves as a vital engine of free expression and assesses how copyright does—and does not—burden speech. Taking First Amendment values as its lodestar, the book argues that copyright should be delimited by how it can best promote robust debate and expressive diversity, and it presents a blueprint for how that can be accomplished.

What Americans know, understand, and believe about the world of politics is the product of a negotiation between journalists and political actors. The news is primarily shaped not by a liberal or conservative bias, but by the need for news to be dramatic and easily packaged. Consequently, the frames into which events are fit – more than any objective idea of truth – determine what information passes through the news filter.

The Press Effect surveys events in a critical period of American history, from the election of 2000 through the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. In each of the events that took place, journalists inhabited a different role that shaped the news. During the election between Bush and Gore, they acted as amateur psychologists, delving into the minds of the candidates in an attempt to reveal their true character. On election night, they acted as soothsayers, while in the postelection events in Florida, the press actively shaped events. On September 11 and after, journalists functioned as patriots, seeking to unify the country. In each case, the role inhabited by the press left critical questions unanswered and allowed distortions of the facts to pass into news. The book closes with a discussion of the means by which the press can enhance its most critical role, that of custodian of fact.

This book takes an in-depth look at German journalism from the late Weimar period through the postwar decades. Illuminating the roles played by journalists in the media metropolis of Hamburg, the book focuses on the lives and work of three remarkable individuals: Marion Countess Dönhoff, distinguished editor of Die Zeit; Paul Sethe, “the grand old man of West German journalism”; and Hans Zehrer, editor in chief of Die Welt. All born before 1914, Dönhoff, Sethe, and Zehrer witnessed the Weimar Republic's end and opposed Hitler. When the latter seized power in 1933, they were, like their fellow Germans, confronted with the difficult choice of entering exile, becoming part of the active resistance, or joining the Nazi Party. Instead, they followed a fourth path—“inner emigration”—psychologically distancing themselves from the regime, their writing falling into a gray zone between grudging collaboration and active resistance. During the war, Dönhoff and Sethe had links to the 1944 conspiracy to kill Hitler, while Zehrer remained out of sight on a North Sea island. In the decades after 1945, all three became major figures in the West German media. The book considers how these journalists and those who chose inner emigration interpreted Germany's horrific past and how they helped to morally and politically shape the reconstruction of the country. With fresh archival materials, the book sheds essential light on the influential position of the German media in the mid-twentieth century and raises questions about modern journalism that remain topical today.

The book offers a new outlook in studying Arab news media. It compares Arab and Anglo-American journalistic practices and reviews journalism education in Arab universities. The book opens up a new research agenda and challenges the concepts taken for granted in Arab media scholarship such as the impact of globalisation, role of Arab media in the public sphere as well as reviews Arab scholars’ work.

Since the introduction of radio and television news, journalism has gone through multiple transformations, but each time it has been sustained by a commitment to basic values and best practices. Journalism Ethics is a reminder, a defence, and an elucidation of core journalistic values, with particular emphasis on the interplay of theory, conceptual analysis and practice. This unified text on journalism ethics begins with a sophisticated model for ethical decision making, devised by two of the nation's leading ethicists, which connects classical theories with the central purposes of journalism. Top scholars from philosophy, journalism and communications offer essays on such topics as objectivity, privacy, confidentiality, conflict of interest, the history of journalism, online journalism, and the definition of a journalist. Theoretical essays are paired with practical essays in order to better inform the discussion. The result is a guide to ethically sound and socially justified journalism, in whatever form that practice emerges.

This study examines the role of the black and white press in the cultural and political struggle over civil rights in South Carolina in the mid-twentieth century. In the 1930s, when black newspapers in the Deep South were mostly cautious and conservative, John McCray and his allies at South Carolina’s Lighthouse and Informer challenged their readers to “rebel and fight” for their rights – to reject the “slavery of thought and action” that created “uncle Toms and aunt Jemimas” and become “progressive fighters for the emancipation of the race.” As black activism spread, journalists at the state’s daily newspapers assumed leadership roles in the white resistance movement. They crafted new narratives designed to undermine black activism, but they also engaged directly in the political process to help implement the policy of massive resistance. When that strategy began to fail, the same journalists ignored their profession’s new norms of impartiality and joined the fight to create a new political home for white segregationists in a conservative Republican Party in the South. By moving the press from the periphery to the center of the political action, Newspaper Wars asks readers to reconsider the role of journalists during times of social, cultural, and political change in their communities.

The Columbia Journalism Review's Second Read series features distinguished journalists revisiting key works of reportage. Launched in 2004, the series also allows authors to address such ongoing concerns as the conflict between narrative flair and accurate reporting, the legacy of New Journalism, the need for reporters to question their political assumptions, the limitations of participatory journalism, and the temptation to substitute “truthiness” for hard, challenging fact. Representing a wide range of views, this book embodies the diversity and dynamism of contemporary nonfiction while offering fresh perspectives on works by Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Rachel Carson, and Gabriel García Márquez, among others. It also highlights pivotal moments and movements in journalism as well as the innovations of award-winning writers.