(bright music) - Freedom.

Out here alone, you can feel it.

Freedom is simple.

Freedom is easy.

I can think and believe what I want, and there's no one to stop me.

No one to take it away.

- But one is the loneliest number.

And reality check here, most of us don't live in solitude.

We live together in a society.

When we start to interact, that's when our sense of freedom can get messy.

Your ideas of freedom may not mesh with mine.

- Anyone who looks around, who pays attention to world events, knows that living here in a free society is a privilege, but it's a shared privilege.

Meaning that while we're all free as citizens, we also have to share the same space.

That's why freedom has to be a two-way street.

- And with more than 340 million of us in this country, each with ideas of what it means to be free, there are going to be clashes.

- The nation's founders saw that this could be a problem, so they added the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution just as the country was getting started.

Essentially, it's a set of limits on the government's power to keep it from stepping on individual freedoms, our freedoms.

And the founders recognized that those rights should never be taken away.

- At the top of the list is freedom of religion, of speech, of the press, of our right to gather peacefully, and our right to petition the government for changes.

This is the First Amendment.

(stirring music) (stirring music continues) (stirring music continues) (stirring music continues) - [Announcer] Financial support for this program was made possible by: the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, a nonpartisan alliance of groups, news organizations, and individuals dedicated to ensuring the transparency of state and local governments in Colorado by promoting freedom of the press, open courts, and open access to government records and meetings.

- You are the worst reporter.

No wonder- - [Bill] The times are troubled.

What the future of the First Amendment is going to be?

Little bit unclear.

President Trump with an extraordinary move.

banning CNN, MSNOW and Politico from the White House because he doesnt like their coverage.

I dont want them in my office, I dont want them here.

Why should people outside of DC, this DC media bubble care about whether these three media outlets get banned from the White House?

This is a serious concern for the public.

An attack on one outlet is an attack on everyone.

- [Reporter] At the start of the school year, 19 books were banned.

- [Reporter] This morning at the Supreme Court, faith and the First Amendment are on the docket.

- I just want to be able to practice my faith after a football game.

- [Tom] Does it feel to you right now that the First Amendment is under threat?

- Yes, because of lack of public endorsement from the very highest levels.

- You're a nasty person, I'll tell you.

(audience laughs) - Ideas are moving faster than they did in previous times, I mean, first time in human history.

♪ We want freedom, freedom, freedom ♪ - [Valda] Fought to get these rights, we finally got the rights, and now we have to teach another generation how to keep those rights.

And we seem to be protesting the same things that we fought for 60 years ago.

- I can't breathe!

I can't breathe!

- And we're still struggling.

I mean, what's it mean to have freedom of speech today?

What does it mean?

The Supreme Court has cases every year.

- There is risk when you know your rights and use them.

- Our rights don't mean anything unless we actually exercise them - We would not be the country we are today without the First Amendment and having the right to read anything.

- Look, once you lose freedoms, it's really hard to get them back.

- Speaking of choosing wisely, a note to the press.

- Reporting the news is a lot about telling the public what the government doesn't want them to know.

- [Reporter] Just 61% called the war a mistake.

Just 36% say it was the right decision.

- The endless stream of garbage.

- CNN has learned that the US military has significantly depleted its stockpile of key missiles during the war with Iran.

- Sometimes it's hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on.

It's incredibly unpatriotic.

- Like you're crooked.

Your press is crooked and "Meet the Press" is crooked.

- To be fair, I'm not crooked, but let's- - No president actually loved the press.

But I think what's different is I actually think this White House has disdain for the press.

- Are you stupid?

Are you a stupid person?

- We are seeing a significant number of threats right now, but we've seen this at various times in our history.

Whether you're talking about the first Red Scare that followed World War I or you're talking about the McCarthy period.

- The raw, harsh, unpleasant fact is that communism is an issue.

- [Bob] Or the civil rights and anti-war protests in the 1960s and '70s.

(protestors shout indistinctly) We've gone through a whole series of existential crises and we have come through them because of the way the system is designed.

It isn't easy, it's not guaranteed, but the structure is there.

The tools are there for us to prevail.

- May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead.

(gentle music) (mellow music) - Okay.

(journalists chatter indistinctly) Hey, Griff.

I have a script in for standup close.

Three, two, and one.

Waymo says it's already identified a software fix for the flooding issue and it's refining its operations in extreme weather and says it's 13 times safer than humans in crashes involving pedestrians Tom.

We are journalists by trade.

My job at NBC News is to inform the public.

Okay, we're all together.

I was just recommending that we use the stat that was in their statement from earlier today in the standup close to address error.

So we would say, "Demonstrating a 13 times reduction in serious injury accidents," or, "It's 13 times safer than humans."

At times, that includes investigating those in power and holding them accountable for their actions.

I understand you have flown in and around D.C.

airspace.

Can you give us a sense of the unique challenges?

And I also record history.

I reflect on current events.

And as a part of that job, I also educate.

- It's quite incredible.

What do we know right now?

We can clearly see all that snow on the ground.

- This is a regional jet.

As you may recall, it was a regional jet involved in the incident in Washington a couple of weeks ago.

This was a CRJ.

- Just days after the Denver Airport announced plans to explore the possibility of adding nuclear power on site, it's putting the plan on pause.

My job is to tell an accurate account of what's happening in our communities and our state.

I'm a host and reporter for Colorado Public Radio.

I've also worked as a reporter in Washington, D.C., and internationally.

While I'm out there, I'd love to just sit down with her and kind of just hear their story, you know, at OneMorgan County.

When done right, our jobs require a lot of hard work, careful research, and fact checking to bring our audiences good information they can trust and to help them make good decisions in their personal, professional, and civic lives.

- [Tom] Lately, these jobs come with a lot of criticism, and the job journalists do is under serious threat.

- [Bazi] So Tom and I are stepping away from our daily assignments to go in search of the First Amendment.

How did it get started?

What kind of challenges has it faced over the years?

How did it survive?

(mellow music) All right, Tom, ready for this journey?

- We've got a lot of ground to cover.

Let's go.

(bright music) - Tom and I are heading out, each with our own assignments.

My first stop to learn about the First Amendment starts here in Charlottesville, Virginia.

This is the city where Thomas Jefferson built one of America's first universities, the University of Virginia.

In many ways, the origin of American freedom that eventually led to the First Amendment began with Thomas Jefferson.

So it makes sense to start here.

(bright music continues) The original idea of the First Amendment was radical, giving individual citizens the right to hold and express their own thoughts.

I know, sounds crazy now, but at that specific time and place, it was still a relatively new idea.

For centuries, populations of people were bound to their king or their church, or both.

It was taught that power was handed from God to the king, that they ruled by divine right, and those authorities wrote the law.

Thinking outside those lines could be dangerous, even deadly.

Our nation's founders knew this, and they wanted to change it.

Where did this concept of freedom of speech, religion, and peaceable assembly start in America?

Thomas Jefferson was a thinker, a man with big ideas.

One of those ideas was what he called natural law.

Why Jefferson?

Why do we think of him first when we're looking at the origin of freedom of speech and freedom of religion in America?

- Well, Jefferson is sometimes described as the architect of American democracy.

Jefferson has this unique ability to express things in a way that seizes us today, that we're still impressed.

This idea of, you know, we have these natural rights.

All men are created equal.

They are endowed by their creator.

And so Jefferson speaks for America in a way that few others do.

- So he was just a really good writer.

- I mean, why is he chosen to write the Declaration of Independence?

They could have chosen Richard Henry Lee or John Adams.

And they said, "No, we want this guy."

- Were there some specific things happening at that period in time that made it sort of ripe for this idea to be put into practice?

- Absolutely.

When you get the American Revolution, he's asked, "Where do you get these ideas in the Declaration of Independence?"

He says, "It's an expression of the American mind."

So he understands this is what, "I'm speaking for America.

I'm speaking for the people."

(stirring music) - [Bazi] What made Jefferson's ideas about individual liberties so out there, so radical for the time?

- Jefferson understands history.

Take religious freedom.

Jefferson says, "Oceans of human blood have been spilled."

When government gets involved, people fight over religion.

We have religious wars.

And so at this moment, he realizes we're going to completely reverse things.

Power doesn't come from the king and it doesn't matter who your parents are.

All men are created equal.

Power does not come from one chosen church.

Your religion comes from your mind.

Education is for everybody.

So this is an enormously radical idea from a world where king and nobility, state church, and only rich people's kids get educated.

Jefferson's talking about a complete sea change of how the world will operate.

And that's what's done with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

- Let's take a look at some of the things you're referencing there.

- Sure.

- You said we know what Jefferson is reading, in part because he kept very good notes on everything that he was reading.

- Yes, Jefferson keeps remarkable notes.

This, of course, is a modern edition, what's referred to as his Commonplace Book.

And so he's got these notes.

He's got books full of notes.

And he has what at the time is one of the world's greatest libraries.

Of course, it becomes the basis of the Library of Congress years later.

- This here is a copy of Jefferson's original draft or one of his early drafts of the Declaration of Independence.

- This is his first full draft.

When he's sitting down in a room in Philadelphia trying to write the Declaration of Independence before the Continental Congress took to it, he knows we're on the verge of declaring independence from the world's superpower.

And so he knows he's writing treason here.

Of course, what's most important to us today that people always focus on, that men are created equal.

Inherent "unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Another thing in this document that I think is critically important is actually the first line, "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people..." They didn't see themselves as one people.

People in Massachusetts were Congregationalists.

Many of them from England, New Yorkers.

There were Jews.

There were people from France.

There were people from Germany in Pennsylvania.

In South Carolina, we have Scotch-Irish Presbyterians.

For Jefferson to say, "No, Americans are one people."

Why?

Because we all believe we have these inalienable rights.

Absolutely.

- [Bazi] Sort of all created equal.

- Yes, and it would be wrong not to recognize.

Jefferson, of course, owns enslaved people.

In his life, he owns over 600 enslaved people.

How do you understand that?

How do you understand that contradiction?

It's very difficult.

I often tell people Jefferson's sight is limited.

It's white men.

But that vision, the vision is expansive.

He writes about religious freedom, and he says, "American religious freedom is for the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Muhammadan the Hindu and the infidel of every denomination."

Now, when he writes that, there's not a lot of Hindus in America.

He understands there will be.

This is all America.

Why?

Because we are one people who believe in these critical principles of inalienable rights, created equal, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That's what makes an American, not your religion, not your race, not your gender.

It's that.

(mellow music) - Since Bazi took the first step in investigating Thomas Jefferson's original ideas of American freedom, it made sense for me to pick up the ball from there.

I landed in Philadelphia, the place where the founders hammered out so much of our country's early framework.

And this is Independence Hall.

This was, in the summer of 1776, the Pennsylvania State House.

It was hot.

It was steamy.

There's no air conditioning.

You know what Philadelphia's like in the summer.

They came and gathered and debated.

They were constantly coming and going that summer, debating whether to break away from England.

And eventually they signed the Declaration of Independence.

And when they did that in this room, they knew they were committing treason.

(bright music) This is also the place where a group of our founding fathers sweated it out in the summer of 1787 to debate the framework of the United States government in what would become the US Constitution.

This was a critical time for American freedom.

The Constitution had been written, but at this point, Thomas Jefferson was in France.

That left James Madison to pick up the charge.

There were still no Bill of Rights, no First Amendment.

(bright music) Fast-forward to September, the Constitutional Convention is coming to a close.

Everyone is hot and tired, and many just wanted to go home.

Congress now had a final draft of the Constitution ready to send out to the states.

Keep in mind, the federal government was young and fragile and states had most of the power back then.

Most already had some sort of Bill of Rights in their state constitutions.

This new US Constitution did not The pushback was immediate.

The most powerful states threatened to withhold their vote to ratify the Constitution unless a Bill of Rights was added.

So Congress quickly came up with a plan to save the fragile republic, telling the states at the beginning of its next session Congress would add a Bill of Rights, which would include what would become the First Amendment.

The states agreed.

(bright music continues) This is the First Amendment as we know it.

The truth is, it wasn't necessarily the first for Madison, was it?

It ended up at the top of the list, but it wasn't their highest priority.

- That's correct.

The ordering of the amendments is somewhat accidental.

- You're saying the First Amendment, the fact that this is actually at the top of the list, is an accident of history.

- Correct.

Yes.

- Professor, you know, for a lot of us who took our high school and our college history classes and civics classes, you're kind of upending the apple cart here.

And our understanding, we figured the First Amendment is the most important.

Not necessarily in the mind of the framers.

- That's correct.

- Why do we place so much emphasis on the First Amendment now in the 21st century?

- Well, the way in which it's been used.

So it includes numerous things.

So freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the two halves of freedom of religion, so no establishment of religion and free exercise of religion, and the right to petition the government.

So for all of those reasons, it's an absolutely fundamental amendment.

It's something that was close to the heart of both Madison and Jefferson.

My only objection would be to singling it out as the most important amendment, because they would've said these other amendments are awfully important too.

So double jeopardy clause.

- Actually, go ahead, read it to me.

- Okay.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

Now, notice it's Congress, not the state governments that's mentioned.

So, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

So that's the two parts of the religion clause.

Then comes, "Or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press."

So that's two more clauses.

"Or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

So you've actually got five related rights that are all packaged in this First Amendment.

And as I say, this is very characteristic of Madison, and he was able to do a lot with very few words.

You can find each of those individual rights in state constitutions, but the way in which Madison has put them together is really, it's a work of art.

- In your view, how well has this First Amendment stood the test of time?

- Extremely well, except for the times when it gets violated.

- Should we as a society be worried?

- We should always be worried.

Madison called them parchment barriers.

So they are not self-executing.

They're in the Constitution, but they really depend on the courts, the people, to be vigilant, pay attention to them, and insist on the way that they ought to be applied.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) - The United States was a brand-new country, and this experiment in democracy was so very fragile.

This is the time when the new country, new Americans, were learning how to deal with their newfound freedoms.

- And the First Amendment would be tested over and over again, almost from the start.

(bright music continues) - In fact, the First Amendment was only eight years old, and the country had just elected its second president, John Adams John Adams had run against Thomas Jefferson.

And back then, the man who came in second became the vice president.

So get this.

It was Thomas Jefferson who became Adams' VP.

(bright music) (pen scratching) The year was 1798.

(swords clashing) There was a violent French revolution that had ripple effects here in the States.

There was a lot of chaos (cannon booming) and a lot of French influence in the US during that time.

There was a significant French population living in the American States, and President Adams believed there were French spies trading secrets.

(bright music continues) Adams directed the Federalist-controlled Congress to essentially ignore the First Amendment.

Congress passed the Sedition Act making it a crime to publish false, scandalous, or malicious writing against the government of the United States.

Several journalists at the time were arrested and jailed for months.

(bright music continues) The move backfired spectacularly because in 1798, when John Adams signed the Sedition Act, it was Thomas Jefferson, normally a very quiet, reserved man, who suddenly became the loudest voice of opposition.

In fact, Jefferson helped the state of Kentucky.

He drafted the legislation helping Kentucky challenge the law.

The attempt to suppress free speech had become so unpopular, Jefferson beat Adams in the next election.

When Jefferson became the third president in 1801, the Sedition Act expired with Adam's term.

1861 to 1865, the American Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln was determined to try to hold the country together.

But one of the tools he used to do that is often overlooked.

You know, we remember Abe Lincoln as the great emancipator as the great unifier, honest Abe, but he was also the great censor.

That's right, Abraham Lincoln suppressed free speech.

Two New York City newspapers published a false story about the draft.

It said Lincoln was calling for 400,000 more soldiers immediately.

The story was made up.

The president was afraid the made-up stories might incite anti-war riots, like the ones that almost burned New York to the ground a year before.

So Lincoln sent soldiers to New York to shut down the newspapers.

In fact, during the entire Civil War, he shut down about 300, many of them run by Confederate sympathizers.

So that raises questions that are really still relevant today.

Are there limits to the First Amendment, to freedom of speech, to the press during wartime?

(gentle music) - Let's jump to 1917, and America is on the brink of World War I. Once President Woodrow Wilson committed the US to fight overseas, the gloves came off as, during any war, there were dissenters.

And in what they believed to be a free society, they spoke their minds.

Some paid a heavy price.

President Wilson signed the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918.

Those acts sent hundreds of Americans to jail for what the government considered disloyal and abusive language about the US government, the military, or the US flag.

Eugene Debs was among the most famous to be jailed because of Wilson's laws.

Debs was an Indiana state representative, the head of the American Railway Union, and the national chairman of the Socialist Party of America.

He used his First Amendment rights speaking up and arguing loudly against the war.

He was accused of being disloyal to the country and charged with sedition.

Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Two and a half years later, after the war, he was pardoned by President Warren Harding, but the once outspoken Debs left prison a broken man and died just five years later.

Congress repealed the Sedition Act in 1921, but the Espionage Act of 1917 remains in place to this day.

It was originally intended for spies, but these days, it's mostly used to punish people for leaking classified information to the media.

One famous example was in 2013 when the Justice Department, under President Barack Obama, charged government contractor Edward Snowden with espionage for leaking government secrets.

Snowden has since moved to Russia, where he lives in exile.

(gentle music) - America came out of World War entering a period of post-war prosperity, but that is when our conflicts turned inward.

Discussions and debates over rights and race and equality dominated the national dialogue.

(protestors sing indistinctly) And it was right here in 1963 here on the National Mall that Martin Luther King led a quarter of a million people marching on the Mall, marching on Washington, demanding their civil rights.

(protestors cheer and applaud) - That's right.

And in fact, one of the most monumental changes in the First Amendment happened after Dr.

King was arrested during the civil rights movement And, you know, Tom, that gives me an idea.

- Yeah, I know this look.

Where are you going?

- Montgomery, Alabama.

It'll be quick.

I'll be right back.

(gentle music) (protestors cheer) - [Martin] Today I want to tell the city of Selma.

- [Speaker] Tell them, Doctor.

- [Martin] Today I want to say to the state of Alabama.

- [Speaker] Yes, sir.

- [Martin] Today I want to say to the people of America and the nations of the world that we are not about to turn around.

- [Speaker] Yes, sir.

- [Martin] We are on the move now.

- [Speaker] Yes, sir.

- [Martin] Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us.

- [Officer] Saying that this is an unlawful assembly.

You have to disperse.

Your order is to disperse.

Go home or go to your church.

(officer speaks indistinctly) (protestors scream) (whistle blares) (protestors shout indistinctly) - How long?

Not long.

Because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

(gentle music) - [Bazi] In a lot of ways, Alabama was the epicenter of the civil rights movement.

It was the home of Rosa Parks, who gained fame for a simple act of defiance, a Black woman who refused to give up her seat on a city bus for a white person and was arrested.

- I felt that the time had come to not take it any more.

I had had enough, and this was truly the end of being pushed around.

- [Bazi] That was the spark of a larger effort in a struggle for equality for Black Americans in the South.

But it would test the boundaries of the First Amendment in ways this country had not seen before.

The right to peaceably protest the government was met with violence and hatred sanctioned by the very government the citizens were protesting.

(protestors scream) Dr.

Valda Harris Montgomery lived through those times with her family and witnessed history firsthand.

- Nice to meet you.

- So nice to meet you.

Good to be in Montgomery with you.

- Is this your first time?

- She's now a retired associate professor from Alabama State University.

During the 1960s, she was on the front lines of those protests.

Today, her family home is a historic marker of the civil rights movement in downtown Montgomery.

So when Dr.

King moved into the neighborhood, you were still a child, is that - Right, I was six years old.

I was six years old when he move The newlywed couple, as we say, because there were no children then.

His first child was born the following year, 1955.

But that December 1st of 1955, a year later, I was turning eight years old.

In fact, December the 1st was my birthday.

I was eight.

And that was also the same day that Rosa Park refused to get up out of her seat.

So of course I'm thinking this is all about me, and it's not.

It was about the birth of the modern civil rights movement.

(tourists speak indistinctly) So this particular area was filled with protests, either the Montgomery march or the Freedom Rides of the street or Rosa Parks around the corner, Selma to Montgomery, and then, of course, you have the slave market that comes up the other direction.

Witnessing the attacks on those protests, if it's not with the police on foot, it's the police on motorcycles, police in the cars, or police on horses, you know?

So we were involved in all of that as I grew up, especially in my teenage years was when we experienced a lot of that.

Yes, mm-hm.

- The First Amendment gives us the right to assemble peacefully.

- Exactly, mm-hm.

- But these protests were frightening things to be part of, I imagine.

- Yes.

Yeah.

They were frightening, but to bring the First Amendment into play here with protests, you knew you had a right to do this.

And I don't know what it was about it, but you have a feeling inside of you that, "I know that I have a right to do this."

And that's why you have so many people that would say, "I will die for this," because you just know instinctively that I have a right to do this and to be here and should be treated fairly as such, and will not be intimidated.

(protestors shout indistinctly) - [Speaker] We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed.

We are perplexed, but not in despair.

Persecuted, but not forsaken.

- [Bazi] All of those protests that you and many others here held certainly brought us a lot of progress, but protesting is still how Americans do democracy in many ways.

- Right.

- [Bazi] We still have people protesting today for civil rights.

- [Protestors] I can't breathe!

I can't breathe!

I can't breathe!

I can't breathe!

We want justice!

You can't stop us!

We want justice!

- [Bazi] What do you think has changed?

- [Valda] Actually nothing.

- Nothing?

- Let me put it that way.

Those of us that grew up with that, we see the parallels.

And in all honesty, most of us are saying the same thing.

We have that visceral feeling that we've already been through this.

We don't want to spend the rest of our lives continuously going through this same kind of thing.

And we seem to be protesting the same things that we fought for 60 years ago.

That's one of the differences to me, is that we fought to get these rights, we finally got the rights, and now we have to teach another generation how to keep those rights.

♪ And I won't turn back ♪ ♪ And I'm on my way ♪ ♪ I'm on my way ♪ - [Bazi] What was it that helped you have the courage that you needed to stand up for your rights?

- [Valda] Watching my parents, watching the protestors of my youth that gave me that encouragement.

When you start seeing that all of that gave us a seat on the bus.

(gentle music) - While Martin Luther King preached for equal rights here at the Dexter Street Baptist Church in downtown Montgomery, he was becoming a problem for the local authorities.

Like other Black rights activists, King was harassed and arrested by local police.

In early 1960, he was charged with forgery on his tax forms and arrested.

King and his supporters claim the charges were made up.

By that time, King had emerged as the leader of the civil rights movement.

An impressive list of celebrities lined up to come to his aid and formed the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South.

Celebrities like Harry Belafonte, Nat King Cole, singer Diane Carroll, Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie Robinson, Eartha Kitt, and Eleanor Roosevelt had all signed on to support King.

And they did so by taking out an ad in "The New York Times."

It was Tuesday, March 29th, 1960.

Readers are opening up "The New York Times" and they come across this giant full-page ad.

The Heed Their Rising Voices advertisement was designed to rile people in the North and encourage them to take action in the South.

But the ad had several mistakes, and L.B.

Sullivan knew it.

Sullivan was Montgomery, Alabama's, police commissioner.

He saw the mistakes in the ad as an opportunity to challenge "The New York Times" and the First Amendment.

Take a look at the mistakes in the ad.

The ad claims students sang "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" at the Alabama state campus.

They actually sang the national anthem.

That's one mistake.

Another mistake, the ad states that "truckloads of police armed with shotguns and tear gas ringed the Alabama State College Campus," which is a mischaracterization.

Police were on the campus three times in large numbers, but they did not ring or surround the campus.

One other mistake, the ad claims Martin Luther King Jr.

had been arrested seven times.

King had been arrested four times at that point.

Some people might think the mistakes that are made in this ad were minor mistakes, but it was enough for Commissioner Sullivan to think that he had grounds for a lawsuit.

- And he found a favorable court in his home state and a favorable jury, and the jury ultimately awarded $500,000.

- [Bazi] It's an ad.

It's not a news article.

Why is that significant?

- The Supreme Court, when they finally take the case, says it doesn't matter that it's an advertisement.

It's speech.

It's speech that appears in "The New York Times" in this case, but it's speech on a matter of public concern, speech criticizing public officials.

It's certainly not like selling used sofas, and we're gonna treat it serious - So in that way, this is a case that's not just about freedom of the press, but really freedom of speech for everybody- - It is, absolutely.

- That has something they may want to write about.

- In the Supreme Court's opinion it refers to freedom of speech and the press.

- [Bazi] Commissioner Sullivan may have won his case in Alabama State Court, but after making its way through appeals, the US Supreme Court saw the case differently.

The court's decision expanded the definition of the First Amendment.

The final decision from the Supreme Court said that mistakes would be inevitable, but unless actual malice was involved in publishing those mistakes, they should not be punished.

The landmark opinion by Justice Brennan helped open new opportunities for journalists.

Brennan wanted to encourage an "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open public discourse."

- If not a launching point, then encouragement for the press in that era and since, because the press knew that the court, among other important institutions, had its back.

- Without this, do you imagine there would just be a ton of self-censorship, just too many people who are unwilling to share their opinion?

- Absolutely.

(gentle music) - On the heels of "The New York Times" decision, free expression and free speech entered a new era.

It was the 1960s.

America was in a state of change and the First Amendment's limits were being tested in the classroom.

Teenagers upset about the Vietnam War were speaking up.

Mary Beth Tinker was just 13 years old when she was suspended for her act of defiance.

As a teen, her case would make it all the way to the Supreme Court It would change the rights for students everywhere in America, and she became a First Amendment icon.

Before I meet back up with Tom, I'm making a quick detour.

I'm meeting Mary Beth Tinker at the Supreme Court Building, the place where she made history more than a half century ago.

- Mary Beth?

- Hi, Bazi.

Hi.

Hi, Bazi.

- Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too.

- Well, will you tell me about the case that brought you all the way here?

- Yes.

It's crazy.

It started in 1965 when I was 13 in eighth grade and some high school students had a plan to wear black armbands to school to mourn for the dead in Vietnam and to call for a Christmas truce.

So I joined with them, and the principals heard about it, and they made a rule against wearing black armbands, which was crazy because they allowed it if you were sad about the football game.

So that's one way that we won the case.

But five of us were suspended and the American Civil Liberties Union took the case to the Supreme Court.

- Why do you think school authorities were so opposed at that point to kids being allowed to state an opinion about the war?

- Well, the president of the school board explained why they were against us wearing black armbands.

He said, "The president has made a decision and we should follow it."

Well, that's not how democracy works, actually.

All of us have a right to express how we feel about decisions that the president makes or any elected official makes.

And so we had that natural inclination to speak up about these things.

And as it turns out, the Supreme Court said that we were right.

When we won the case, it was kind of an earthquake because the Supreme Court said the principal was wrong, the superintendent of schools was wrong, the school board was wrong, the teachers who sent us to the office were wrong, and the kids were right, which is one reason why young people love this case, because it's a situation where the youth prevailed, and the Supreme Court said that we were right to speak up and use our rights.

- What do you think has been the legacy of your willingness, you and the other students, to fight this battle, to take this case all the way to our highest court?

- The legacy of the case is that students are important.

Their voices are important.

And not only is it important for them and for their wellbeing to be able to advocate for their own interests, and that's what the First Amendment is so useful for, I think.

It helps people advocate what would be good for me, what would help me thrive.

And as a nurse working with children, I'm so happy to see that young people are using their rights and advocating for themselves.

So I think that's the legacy, is that young people have a right to advocate for themselves.

And there are many adults who understand that that's important, not just for the young people, but for our society.

- You speak with a lot of young people today.

You share your story.

Why do you do that?

- I like to encourage young people to know their rights, first of all, and that's the First Amendment, especially now, but also to use their rights, because when they advocate for themselves by using their rights, we can improve the conditions for young people.

I'm a nurse and I've worked with young people and teenagers in my career and I've seen how things aren't always fair for young people.

And so by using their rights, they can improve things for themselves and for other youth.

- Right now, we are working on sending letters to the Congress of our states.

If we are from South Carolina, we send it to our congressmen from that state.

If we are from D.C., then we can find someone we can do it so they can share our story.

- [Mary Beth] I think that's great that you're doing that.

When you're doing all of this, how does it feel?

- Good and bad.

Good in the way that we are doing something to help not just ourselves, but the people around us who share a story similar to ours.

- So I think that's one thing that we can do when we feel afraid.

Look through history or even today and learn about other people who are speaking up things.

And that can kind of give you courage when you realize that we're just, like, one part of this long line of people all through history and around the world who are speaking up for a better world, because we're certainly not going to accept the way the world is right now.

(students applaud) Aw, it's great to meet you too.

That's great.

Okay, yeah.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you, Sydney.

- It's nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too.

Bye, sweetheart.

Bye.

- Freedom of the press side of things, but Mary Beth's story is really about, like, also we have these rights as individuals, not just as the media.

- I was very scared to go speak and then I got rid of my dream to be a journalist.

- [Mary Beth] Oh!

Then go back to it.

- I'm planning to again.

- Good, good!

- Yeah, these are all motivating me to go back again.

That once I drop something, I'm going to pick it up again and go for it.

And you're my inspiration to do it.

- Yeah, good, do it.

- Oh, that's so good.

Getting over your fears.

We have to all get over our fears.

Speak up.

- We spend a lifetime doing that.

- You spend a lifetime.

- I keep doing it.

- Exactly.

It goes on and on.

J.

- [Student] U-L-I-E-T-H.

- A-L-I-C-I-A.

(bright music) - Hey, that was quick.

How was your trip?

- It was fascinating.

I learned a lot about how the First Amendment has changed since the 1960s.

- You know, you and I have talked an awful lot about how important freedom of the press is.

It's important to us.

We're both working journalists.

But other portions of the First Amendment are equally important and touch everyday aspects of American life.

- Definitely.

- Freedom of religion.

Freedom to assemble peacefully.

Freedom to petition the government.

- And I think we should take a little time to look at some examples of how the First Amendment protects those freedoms as well.

Let's start with a story about religion in schools.

Back in 2015, there was a football coach in Washington who would kneel on the 50-yard line after every game and pray very publicly.

Some students would join him.

The school asked him to stop.

They were worried about the separation of church and state.

The coach refused to stop.

He lost his job and then he sued - [Tom] And then the Supreme Court weighed in on this.

- [Bazi] They did.

And the majority of justices ruled that his praying publicly was indeed protected by the First Amendment.

- [Tom] But there was a dissenting opinion.

- That's right.

And the dissenters in this case that the court should not have elevated one person's right to freedom of religion above the separation of church and state, which is meant to protect religious freedom for all of us.

- Yeah, you can see both sides.

- You have a story about college - Yeah, you know, protests again have been going on for decades, but during Israel's war in Gaza, college campuses erupted, many of them erupted in protest.

Many of them pro-Palestinian protests.

There were foreign students in some of those protests.

And the Trump administration believed that that was really an anti-Semitic protest and the Trump administration moved to deport some foreign students.

- [Bazi] And then this became another case that went to court.

- [Tom] That's right.

So a federal judge ruled that trying to deport a foreign student who is peacefully protesting and who is expressing their First Amendment is itself a violation of the First Amendment.

The judge ruled that that applies to all students, everyone.

You don't have to be a citizen in the United States.

This could well go to the Supreme Court.

(gentle music) - Now, I have a question for you When is a crosswalk not a crosswalk?

- Trick question, right?

- It is.

- It must be First Amendment related.

- It is.

This is a story that happened in Florida when the Department of Transportation painted over all rainbow-colored crosswalks in the state.

- [Tom] I remember.

- [Bazi] That included one in Orlando that had been painted just after the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub, a well-known gay club in the city.

Governor DeSantis said that he was enforcing a state law that forbids any crosswalk art that is political or that is not explicitly for traffic control.

- [Tom] Right, but the critics said, "This isn't a political statement."

They were trying to pay tribute to the victims of that shooting.

- [Bazi] Yes, and some other critics said that they believed the intention of removing the crosswalk art was always to limit free speech.

They believe it was just another action taken by the DeSantis administration to try to shut down opinions it doesn't agree with related to LGBTQ issues.

- [Tom] And just a few years earlier, Governor DeSantis signed that so-called Don't Say Gay law, which essentially prohibited public school teachers from discussing sexual orientation and really any sexual issues through the eighth grade, including gender identity.

- [Bazi] That's right, and the law was later expanded to prohibit teachers from using preferred pronouns.

- Yeah, critics claim that, in fact, this move was political and it's a violation of the First Amendment.

But, of course, this issue is also coming down to the First Amendment, freedom of speech.

- These are just a few examples of how the First Amendment is not always as clear cut as you might think.

The lesson here is that the First Amendment is always evolving.

- Yeah, and, you know, today it just feels like information overload.

It's constant.

And so it can really get ugly.

- Unfortunately, yes.

- [Tom] Yeah.

I'll catch up with you later.

- [Bazi] See you soon.

(gentle music) (static crackling) - [Reporter] This is a CBS News special report.

"The Embattled President," with CBS News correspondent Roger Mudd.

- Richard Nixon's future as the president of the United States has now apparently moved beyond his control.

Despite his own considerable powers as chief executive, his future is really in the hand of the other two branches of government, the courts and the Congress.

- [Bazi] "The New York Times" v. Sullivan decision created an opening for journalis to challenge officials.

(machine whirring) Journalists had license now to investigate.

Their work brought down corrupt leaders from the very top and ushered in a new era of investigative journalism (camera shutter clicks) exposing lies and coverups.

- I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

Vice President Ford will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office.

(gentle music) - It was at best an awkward day for John McCain.

- [Bazi] Now, more than 60 years we no longer live in a three-network world.

We live in a world of a 24/7 news cycle.

Hundreds of channels of news and information, much of it agenda-driven, much of it unregulated.

- These people are ridiculous.

There's no maggots.

- Sort of looks like Donald Trump is just agreeing to give in and lose the war because he doesn't have any good military options left.

- Where we're at in this country The Democrats have absolutely lost their mind.

- [Bazi] Today, so much information has taken a cynical turn.

- What do you think should be done about illegal immigrants who were brought in when they were like six months old?

- Send them back.

- Speaking out against Nazism and fascism and- - [Bazi] Bitter ideological echo chambers reinforcing biases, narrowing understanding of the issues.

- Some enormous right-wind corporation- - [Bazi] In this environment, it can be difficult to find the truth.

- It was an indictment framed as a question, so you're forgiven for not under - People that you supposedly- - [Bazi] It can be difficult to recognize the tenets of fact-based journalism.

- People don't like liars.

- Consider every supposed racist atrocity from decades or centuries ago.

- Donald Trump appears to be completely passed out.

- Donald Trump is approaching his so-called deal in Iran the only way he knows how, which is to lie about it nonstop - [Bazi] And under the First Amendment, all of it is legal.

(mellow music) - [Tom] In America today, it is a complicated battlefield of ideas, and the First Amendment is caught in the middle.

While there are several areas where the First Amendment is in the center of chaos, I'm going to look at three very different examples where the First Amendment spells controversy.

The first example is with the Department of Defense.

Pentagon reporters have covered critical military operations for decades.

That's allowed the press embedded access on the front lines, giving Americans important information on military action around the world.

It's provided valued and trusted relationships with top military commanders.

Sometimes that access has uncovered corrupt behavior that has led to systemic change.

- [Reporter] Low-ranking soldiers like Lindy England committed the abuses, but the Senate Armed Services Committee today released a paper trail leading back to the Pentagon.

- [Tom] That long-standing tradition has materially changed Under the current administration Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth enforced a new policy forcing reporters to sign a pledge.

That pledge required Pentagon reporters not to gather or report on any information unless it was approved for release, which basically amounts to state-run censorship.

Long-time Pentagon reporters walked out in protest and were replaced by bloggers and talk show hosts, many of whom had no experience covering the military, many handpicked by the Trump administration.

- Excuse me.

Why are you so rude Just wait.

I'm calling on people.

- [Reporter] Thank you, Secretary.

- [Tom] "The New York Times" sued over its First Amendment right to cover the Defense Department.

A judge has since overturned the department's policy, calling it unconstitutional.

Why is it important that reporters are covering the Pentagon around the clock?

- There is a public right to know, and it needs to be preserved, and it's something that should be cherished.

Even people who don't like the news media, who don't think the news media is doing a good job, ask them if they still want the right to know what the government is up to, I suspect most of them will say yes.

Nowadays, what we see is very personal criticism of reporters and journalists by society, by politicians.

Very critical and downright nasty.

- But the legacy Trump-hating press, your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors.

- This is really a First Amendment right for the public to know what is happening at the military and their sons and daughters who are wearing the uniform.

What's the risk to the public and to the right to know if reporters don't have the kind of access they've had in the past at the Pentagon?

- I think there is tremendous risk because it does go back to the First Amendment.

And the foundation of US democracy is that the American public, regardless of who they are, what they think, what their political persuasion is, has the absolute right to know what their government is up to, and especially what US military troops are being called to do in the name of the American people.

And any effort to restrict that, in my view, is an effort to restrict the Constitution, and that's unacceptable.

This is still a democracy.

People have the right to ask questions of their government.

The politicians can try to shut it all down.

They're going to lose.

They're never going to win that battle.

- This isn't really politics though, right?

This is the Constitution and the foundation of the Constitution, the First Amendment.

- Well, I sure hope it is.

The Constitution is not political.

The Constitution is about defending the right of all Americans, of all people living in this country, no matter who they are.

And maybe one of the things everybody needs to think about is more education about what the Constitution is.

Are we still teaching it in all of our schools?

I don't know.

I learned about it.

You learned about it.

I don't know to what extent young people in school today need to learn more about it because the country is so politically fractured.

It is the underpinning of the country, and that's why I think those who challenge it will lose.

And I think it would be the same for the political efforts to try and challenge the news media.

They're going to lose.

The Constitution will win.

(bright music) - Public libraries are a cornerstone in American communities providing reliable information for everyone.

For Terri Lesley, the Campbell County Public Library was her life.

She spent 27 years there in Gillette, Wyoming, working her way up until she became the top librarian.

Then the attacks came.

It was all over a list of books that dealt with things like adolescent sex education and LGBTQ+ lifestyles, a list familiar to libraries across the country.

Activists wanted some of the books moved out of the young adult section and other titles removed from the library altogether.

The library board voted Terri out after a lifelong career.

The board claimed the firing had nothing to do with the pressure from any censorship group.

Terri made national headlines when she sued and won.

Under the settlement, the board admitted to no wrongdoing.

These are the books that were so controversial.

- These are definitely some of the most controversial books.

- What's the theme, consistent theme, throughout all these books?

- Well, sex education is one of the themes, and LGBTQ lifestyle is another.

- The concern from the public was that, what, that these were inappropriate for kids of a certain age?

- Yes, and maybe just even inappropriate to be in a public library at all.

- What is the role of a library in society?

- The role is to provide information and entertainment and also technology to the community and to assist people in their quest for knowledge.

And that's what we do.

We love it.

- But what if some people don't like that topic, don't like that subject, and don't think people should have access to it?

- Well, they shouldn't access it themselves, but they shouldn't be worried about what somebody else wants to access.

That's an individual right.

Not something that you can be told you can or can't do.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- I mean, it's a core First Amendment.

- It is core First Amendment, yes.

- You've pent 27 years as a librarian.

What does the First Amendment mean to you?

- I'm such a strong believer in the First Amendment that I was willing to lose my job to stand up for it.

- And you faced a whole community coming after you and calling you names.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- It took a toll on you.

- You'll have to forgive me for a second.

It was very emotional in the background.

I always held it together at these meetings, but I'd get home and I'd feel a little sad about, "Oh my gosh, did that really just happen?"

It was brutal.

- You probably did not get into your profession expecting you were going to be the center of controversy and in the middle of a lawsuit and taking on the entire county, but was it worth it?

- Yes.

I have no regrets.

At the end of the day, I know I did the right thing, and so that always helps.

Sometimes you have to do tough things, and it hurts.

But when you're doing the right thing, then you can live with yourself and you can get up the next day and move on.

(mellow music) - [Tom] Free speech is great when it agrees with us, but when it doesn't, that's when the First Amendment becomes complicated.

In this digital age where so much speech is unregulated, misinformation and lies are everywhere.

Facts can be taken out of context.

Viewers and readers can be easily misled.

During COVID-19, several people posted false and misleading statements about the pandemic.

The Biden administration saw these falsehoods as a threat to the national health and safety of the country.

Through the Department of Homeland Security, the administration pressured social media companies to silence those points of view that it found dangerous, misleading, and false.

At about the same time, Donald Trump had been posting falsehoods about losing the election in 2020, claiming it was stolen from him.

Again, the Biden administration stepped in to pressure social media companies over Trump's posts.

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all banned Trump.

Trump sued and won and was eventually reinstated on all of those platforms.

If I lie, and everybody knows I'm lying, is my lie and am I protected by the First Amendment?

- You are.

Because what the First Amendment says is the government doesn't get to be the arbiter of truth.

And imagine what that would mean if it could be.

If the government were empowered to decide whenever someone was lying and they could be sent to jail or made to pay civil damages because of that, that would vest an awful lot of power in the government.

And that's what the framers said was not going to be allowed to happen.

- And yet lies can also be awfully destructive and hurtful and undermining of the democracy.

- Sure.

Lies can be destructive.

And what the framers decided and what the First Amendment says is that the best way to determine whether or not a lie exists out there is to let things play out in the marketplace of ideas and let truthful speech then do the job of suppressing untruthful speech.

It's not easy, it isn't automatic, but it requires that marketplace of ideas to work.

- Easier said than done when you are quite literally living now in a society in which we are flooded with a lot of disinformation.

- [Protestor] This is our town now.

(protestors shout indistinctly) It's our town now.

- You may remember the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017.

- [Protestors] Jews will not replace us!

Jews will not replace us!

- Where you had all kinds of vile speech going on, a Tiki torch march with people saying, "Jews will not replace us," and basically neo-Nazi slogans.

(protestors shout indistinctly) Violence in the streets.

(protestors shout indistinctly) But the way you respond to that is by what actually happened.

The reaction to that episode in Charlottesville was played out in Boston.

- [Protestor] Up with the people - [Protestors] Down with the fascists!

- [Protestor] Up with the people - [Protestors] Down with the fascists!

(crowd cheers and applauds) - [Bob] Where you had thousands of people showing up, and the number of people protesting the neo-Nazi speech, the margin was 800 to one.

- [Protestor] Police protect Nazis!

- [Protestor] You're part of the problem!

- [Bob] People sometimes ask what the First Amendment was designed to protect, and I think it's the wrong question.

The question posed by the First Amendment was, what was it designed to prevent?

It was designed to prevent censorship.

And the rest of it is up to us.

- Ultimately, it is up to the judicial system, it's up to the courts to uphold the First Amendment.

- Well, it's up to all of us.

First of all, it's up to the targets of government overreach and government pressure.

They've got to stand up.

A spine is a terrible thing to waste.

You've got to have people who are willing to put themselves on the line and to challenge those kinds of actions.

Secondly, you've got to have advocates who are willing to take those cases.

And then you have to have courts willing to issue those decisions - [Tom] If you were confused before, here comes artificial intelligence.

Look at this.

On social media, this video circulated of a tiger escaping from its enclosure.

Its handler barely escaping alive.

It never happened.

This video was generated by artificial intelligence.

No tiger, no handler.

Jessica Foster, this attractive army sergeant, racked up more than a million followers on Instagram in just a few months, but she's not real.

"The Washington Post" investigated and found no military record of Jessica Foster.

What "The Post" did discover is that the Instagram account directed followers to a Fanvue account, which is a paid website for explicit content.

The Instagram page has since been taken down.

Is artificial intelligence also protected speech?

- Yes, it is.

- But it's not a human.

It's a computer.

- Well, you're not protecting the computer.

You're protecting the person who operates the computer.

- The difference here is this is not a microphone, right?

This is not a camera.

This is artificial intelligence, which is operating on its own.

There isn't somebody behind the curtain that is pushing the buttons on this.

So when you're dealing with a computer that in and of itself, that's why they call it artificial intelligence, is coming up with an argument, saying things to you that is complete nonsense, it's hard to understand that that is also protected speech.

- [Bob] Well, not all of it's going to be protected.

Someone is going to be responsible ultimately for that speech.

But, again, the difficulty- - But I'm sorry, but it's artificial intelligence.

There's nobody who's back there plugging in the answers.

- What you have to ask yourself who are you going to put in control of that?

And if the answer is we're going to allow the government to decide what artificial intelligence can do or what it can't do, then, again, you have put the power where the framers said it shouldn't reside.

We live in a system that was designed by geniuses so that it could survive idiots.

But history isn't written by the people who gave in.

History is written by the people who stood up.

(mellow music) (mellow music continues) (speakers chatter indistinctly) - That was a lot.

We certainly live in complicated - You know, there's no way that the founders could have thought about how the First Amendment would apply to machines or 21st century computers.

- I certainly wish we could know what their reaction would be to this new technology.

- It's changing so fast.

And can the First Amendment survive AI in this century?

And what's on the horizon?

- Really big and important questions.

- [Tom] Yeah.

(mellow music continues) - [Bazi] There is a lot to take in.

Tom and I are looking for some words of wisdom from a couple of journalism legends who can provide some perspective.

I'm off to Boston to meet with Marty Baron.

He led "The Boston Globe" when they broke the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal.

He also led the newsroom at "The Washington Post" during President Trump's first term.

We are sitting down at an ideal place to talk about the First Amendment, the Old South Meeting House, the place where free speech first ignited the Revolutionary War.

- And I'm meeting with Dean Baquet, former executive editor of "The New York Times."

Both are Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists and both have led arguably some of the most important newsrooms in the country.

Dean, we start this conversation at what many believe is a rather perilous time for the First Amendment.

Do you believe the First Amendment is in danger?

- I don't think the First Amendment itself is in danger.

I would say there's a subset that's in danger.

I think the role of the press in American society and the fact that Americans have to have trust in the press for the system to work, I think that's in danger.

But I still think, whenever you look at the way other countries operate, the First Amendment is still a very powerful force.

And I don't know that the amendment itself is at risk.

Are you trying to intimidate the press from doing its job?

No, no, no.

I dislike dishonest press, like you.

I think youre terrible.

IN SEPTEMBER 2026, PRESIDENT TRUMP BANNED CNN, MS-NOW AND POLITICO FROM THE WHITE HOUSE FOR PUBLISHING STORIES HE DISAGREES WITH.

THE THREE NEWS AGENCIES IMMEDIATELY FILED A LAWSUIT IN AN UNPRECEDENTED FIRST AMENDMENT STAND OFF.

DONALD TRUMP ANNOUNCING THAT HE WAS BANNING THOSE THREE MAJOR US NEWS AGENCIES HERES WHAT HE WROTE ON SOCIAL MEDIA, JUST ON FRIDAY.

IM PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THAT, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY IM BANNING FAKE NEWS CNN, MS-NOW AND POLITICO FROM THE WHITE HOUSE, AS A RESULT OF THEIR CONSTANT REPORTING FAKE NEWS.

I DONT THINK THAT A COURT SHOULD ALLOW FAKE NEWS TO BE WRITTEN DAY AFTER DAY AFTER DAY... THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENCE ASSOCIATION SAYS THE BAN IS A VIOLATION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT THE STAGE NOW SET FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL CLASH.

BREAKING NEWS OUT OF WASHINGTON.

CNN, MS-NOW AND POLITICO ARE SUING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AFTER THE PRESIDENT BANNED THEM, THEIR REPORTERS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.

THE LAWSUIT READS IN-PART, QUOTE, “THIS BAN COULD NOT BE A MORE DIRECT ASSAULT ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT NOR A BLATANT VIOLATION OF OUR MOST FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES.” THIS IS TO ADVISE THAT AS OF TODAY, THE TV POOL WILL NOT BE COVERING EVENTS DESIGNATED AS POOL COVERAGE OF THE PRESIDENT IT WILL BE A MAJOR TEST OF PRESS FREEDOM AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT IN THIS COUNTRY.

THE FIRST AMENDMENT IMPLICATIONS ARE VERY SERIOUS HERE.

THIS LAWSUIT IVE BEEN READING HERE IS ONE OF THE STRONGEST EFFORTS IVE SEEN FROM ANY NEWSROOM IN THE UNITED STATES.

THE FIVE TELEVISION NETWORKS THAT ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR BRINGING US ALL OF THE LIVE IMAGES OF THE PRESIDENT ARE ALL SAYING NOW THAT THEY WILL NOT PARTICIPATE IN POOLED EVENTS, BECAUSE OF THE FACT THAT CNN HAS BEEN BANNED FROM THE CAMPUS HERE AT THE WHITE HOUSE.

UMM.. OBVIOUSLY THE RAMIFICATIONS ARE RIGHT HERE.

WE CANT HEAR WHAT THE PRESIDENT IS SAYING.

THEY ARE SAYING TOGETHER, THAT THEY ARE NOTIFYING THE GOVERNMENT, “TO PROTECT OUR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS AND DEFEND THE PRINCIPLE THAT THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT DECIDE WHAT THE PRESS REPORTS AND PUBLISHES.” THIS MORNING PRESIDENT TRUMP PUSHED BACK SAYING THAT THIS ISNT AN ASSAULT ON THE FREE PRESS, BUT INSTEAD AN ASSAULT ON FAKE NEWS.

- [Bazi] You've covered a number of administrations in your time.

I wonder if you could offer some perspective on the current threat to First Amendment rights.

- It's worsened under this admin I mean, look, Nixon regularly attacked the press, but I think this administration has gone well beyond that and I think that it is systematically trying to, first of all, initially marginalize the press, but after that, to really now undermine its economic sustainability, to undermine its legal position, to saddle it with enormous costs to defend itself against baseless lawsuits, to use the regulatory power of government to force changes in media.

They've been quite explicit about that.

And it's all targeted against media organizations that they themselves just don't like.

They've also tried to cultivate a media of their own, basically to serve as a propaganda vehicle.

- Why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files?

Why not just do it now?

- You know, it's not the question that I mind.

It's your attitude.

I think you are a terrible reporter.

It's the way you ask these questions.

You start off with a man who's highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question.

And you could even ask that same exact question nicely.

You're all psyched up.

Somebody psyched you over at ABC They're going to psych... You're a terrible person and a terrible reporter.

- What really troubles me is the American who sits there and watches that and looks at the press asking the questions, looks at the press being treated with disdain, looks at the press being treated as if they're sort of pesky gnat getting in the way of a big American issue, and that bothers me because I think that has an impact on how we're regarded.

- But you've never presented evidence that it was rigged.

Let's keep talking about... I want to talk about Todd Blanch - You have more evidence, there's more evidence than ever - Let's talk about- - Your elections in this country, we're like a third world country - But sir- - Your elections are crooked and you're crooked and "Meet the Press" is crooked.

- But Mr.

President- - And so is ABC and CBS and CNN.

- [Reporter] But Mr.

President- - You're a one-sided crooked net Let's call it quits because I've had enough.

- Our role, and I think the reas there is a First Amendment, our role is to ask hard questions of the government.

- It's important to understand that this is not just a matter of media, by the way.

So I think it's important to understand that the rights that we talk about for ourselves are the rights that every individual wants for himself or her herself.

That is the right to know what the facts are, the right to communicate those facts to other people, and the right to express your opinions about whether things are going in the right direction or the wrong direction.

That's it.

That's all we do.

- You have to have trust as a society.

You have to have leaders that you trust.

They've done it to us.

They have lied to us over and over and over again.

- [Reporter] A sitting member of Congress showed up to a federal detention facility in New Jersey.

- I don't believe they didn't come up with this.

- And things turned chaotic.

- I'll tell you what the real story is, okay?

Because we went back and combed news reports about these Haitians, these wonderful Haitians that we're told all about who are allegedly just like you - I mean, it's just incredible.

So in January, Trump buys hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in Nvidia.

- Because I don't believe any Democrat about immigration.

- [Rachel] Then a week later, his commerce department approves the sale of Nvidia chips to China.

- For the reader and for the viewer, it's tough right now, isn't it?

Because they are dealing with just an onslaught, a fire hose of news every day.

- That's right.

- Of AI, of misinformation, of disinformation, of partisan news outlets.

It is very difficult for the news consumer who is not doing this 24/7.

They have a real job to go to during the day.

It's tough for them to navigate this.

- That's right.

So my view, what I would say to a news consumer is you should find a couple of news outlets.

And I don't really care if they're news outlets you agree with or not.

That's not important.

Find a couple of news outlets, maybe even opposing news outlets that you trust, that you come to trust because they get it right, and try to focus on what they're saying.

I think that, frankly, in the era we're in, is the only way to actually understand what's going on and to get at the truth.

- You talked about how media companies that are dependent on the government to approve a merger, the very idea that you as the journalist or you as the media company need government approval, need the blessing to conduct business here on the left and on the right, in many ways, that undermines confidence in your ability to be an objective journalist, right?

- It does.

And frankly, in some cases that we've seen recently, it should undermine confidence.

When some networks fold and pay settlements to the government for cases that are clearly protected by the First Amendment cases that either were right, things were said that were correct, or they apologized the next day, all of those things are, like, cultural foundations of the First Amendment, that if you get it wrong, you admit it, you apologize, everybody moves on.

I think the fact that people are settling in those cases, I think that that undermines, frankly, our power and our authority.

I think a lawsuit deadens your journalism.

A lawsuit makes you afraid.

A lawsuit eats up your time.

A lawsuit eats up your energy.

And a lawsuit can even put you out of business.

- And that is exactly the point.

- That's exactly the point.

- And that is a threat to the First Amendment.

- That's exactly right.

If you are sitting there, if a journalist sits at the typewriter afraid of the lawsuit, that's a very different emotion than sitting at the typewriter and making sure you got it right.

- So is that then a form of self-censorship?

- Sure it is.

- What is their obligation to the American public?

- Well, their obligation is to fulfill the mission of journalism.

The mission of journalism, in my view, is to give the public the information it needs and deserves to know so that they can govern themselves.

And at the core of that, at the heart of that, is the need to hold powerful individuals and powerful institutions to account.

That is why we have the First Amendment in the Constitution.

That's why there's a provision for freedom of the press there.

Explicit provision for freedom of the press.

And James Madison, who was the principal author of that amendment, in defending it and arguing for it, he talked about the need of freely examining public characters and measures.

And he wasn't just talking about the press, by the way.

He was talking about all American citizens.

But the press had a special role and that's why it was written into the first amendment.

And one of the key words there is examining.

- [Reporter] President Putin- - If you don't understand that, you're in the wrong business.

- It is the right thing to do.

(reporter speaks indistinctly) - Excuse me, sir.

It's not time for questions, sir Not while I'm speaking.

- Can I just add to that, a couple weeks ago- - No, you can't.

This is the second follow-up.

You usually get one follow-up.

And I'm nice enough to give you I didn't give anybody on this side a follow-up, and now you are trying to take a second follow-up.

- There's supposed to be tension between the government and the press.

- That's what the founders wanted.

They did not create the First Amendment so that we could be the government's stenographers and the government's propagandis There's not even a hint of that.

- So are you optimistic about the future of fact-based, objective journalism in this country on any level, on any scale?

- I am optimistic.

- I do have hope.

I'm an optimist.

Look, every day, there's really great reporting.

- All the evidence is, even if they don't read it the way you and I grew up reading it, they care about the news.

They read the news.

People want it.

They may get it from TikTok.

They may get it from Instagram.

That's okay.

We need to go where they're getting it.

So I think people still value news.

- I'm optimistic because I've seen over time that we've had presidents who have been very hostile toward the press and we've come through that.

And so I think we have the capacity to make it through.

But what's really important is we have to defend those right Practicing journalists have to defend them.

The owners of media organizations have to defend the very rights that gave rise to their business They wouldn't have these businesses unless we had these rights.

And ordinary Americans need to stand up for these rights because really it concerns their to express themselves.

It's not a right that's unique to the press.

We're talking about the right of artists to express themselves as they wish.

The right of a singer to write a song, the poet to write poetry.

Right of an author to express himself or herself.

The right of a late-night comedian to make jokes.

The right of a lawyer to speak up for a client.

That's free expression.

(bright music) WE ARE FOLLING THAT BREAKING NEWS OUT OF WASHINGTON DC, AS A FEDERAL JUDGE HAS ORDERED PRESIDENT TRUMP TO RESTORE WHITE HOUSE ACCESS FOR JOURNALISTS FROM CNN, MS-NOW AND POLITICO, OVERNIGHT, PRESIDENT TRUMPS PRESS BAN, BLOCKED.

A TRUMP-APPOINTED FEDERAL JUDGE SAYING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION HAS TO TEMPORARILY RESTORE ACCESS TO THE WHITE HOUSE FOR CNN, MS-NOW AND POLITICO.

THE PRESIDENT SAID THAT HE WAS BANNING THE THREE OUTLETS DUE TO THEIR REPORTING.

THE JUDGE SAID THAT THE JOURNALISTS PRESS CREDENTIALS MUST IMMEDIATELY BE RESTORED.

CALLING HIS BAN THAT WAS ANNOUNCED BACK ON SEPTEMBER 18TH LIKELY UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

AND ORDERING THE ADMINISTRATION TO RETURN THE PRESS PASSES TO THOSE THREE OUTLETS.

BLOCKING OFFICAL FROM ENFORCING THE BAN FOR 14 DAYS.

A MAJOR SETBACK FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP IN HIS LATEST BATTLE WITH THE MEDIA.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - In the beginning, we started off with this idea of freedom of thought, freedom of expression.

And the founders thought it was so important, they wrote it into the First Amendment.

- It was almost immediately assaulted with the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798, then during the Civil War and again during World War I.

- And freedom of speech and freedom of expression are again under attack today.

Nobody knows how this will all play out.

But this really isn't about the politics of this moment or any moment.

This is about the timeless American principle that has really held us together for more than 250 years.

- That's right.

And the lesson here is to take a page from the founders.

(bright fanfare music) (car horn blaring) (bright fanfare music continues) Think about it this way.

Imagine Americans far into the future looking back at us.

- [Protestors] Strike, strike, s strike, strike, strike, strike!

(protestors shout indistinctly) - [Bazi] What will they think about the decisions we made today?

(gentle music) - [Tom] Every generation fears that their democracy, their rights are in peril, but this country has weathered many storms, and there's always another storm on the horizon.

(gentle music continues) (patrons chatter indistinctly) Most of us don't know what it's like not to be free.

Yet freedom is still very fragile.

It needs to be defended.

- We are moving to the land of freedom.

- [Tom] Peacefully.

(bright fanfare music) Freedom requires more than a Pledge of Allegiance.

It requires hard work, every day (speakers chatter indistinctly) From distant battlefields to local town halls.

What was the point of the First Amendment in the first place?

If the goal was a more perfect union, it has to include the guarantee of freedom of expression, of freedom of the press.

- Anything with investigation because it's a hoax.

That's enough.

Put down the mic.

- [Reporter] Mr.

President, are you worried about indictments coming down?

- [Tom] But that is always going to be challenged.

- [Protestors] I can't breathe!

I can't breathe!

I can't breathe!

- It's up to us to defend our own rights.

- Our own First Amendment.

(gentle music continues) (stirring music) (stirring music continues) (stirring music continues) (stirring music continues) (bright music)