Summary

Chapter Six addresses the challenges of responsibly exercising First Amendment rights. The most common controversy that arises is the balance between publishing newsworthy information and withholding that information at government request in the interest of national security. Abrams was a lawyer for the New York Times after they published the Pentagon Papers, a collection of leaked government documents showing the deception the U.S. government engaged in to justify its involvement in the Vietnam War. At the time, Abrams states that staff members within the Times were divided over whether they should publish the documents. Recently, news organizations have become more willing to publish information from leaked government documents, as evidenced by the Snowden leaks, likely due to greater distrust in government. The author recounts a related, though hypothetical, example in which journalists were divided over whether they would alert American soldiers to a...