This issue of "Journalism Monographs" deals specifically with the state of newspaper journalism in Sri Lanka, formerly the Dominion of Ceylon. The country's literacy rate is about 81 percent. The first section of this article is a general discussion of newspaper journalism in Sri Lanka, examining historical background and such press…

Staggered by some recent libel verdicts, many journalists are neglecting lessons about press freedom learned at great cost during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Journalists then learned that state power over the press, residing in the hands of either censors or judges, leads to a decrease in press freedom. In 1986, though, many media…

A descriptive study based on Egyptian law, printed sources, and interviews clarifies our picture of the Egyptian Press by examining its status as a constitutionally mandated "Fourth Estate." The constitutional amendment, the resultant Egyptian Press Law, and the "Law Of Shame" (all passed in 1980), are designed to create a…

The career of James Franklin, Benjamin Franklin's older brother, provides a case study in the use of polemics for a free press. A printer who actively courted controversy, Franklin found it necessary to use an unusual variety of strategies and justifications to evade or overcome potential legal, religious, and economic restraints. He demonstrated…

Examines the events surrounding the Bay of Pigs coverage in the "Times" and concludes that the editors did not hold back the story. (FL)

Julio Mesquita joined the staff of "O Estado de Sao Paulo" in 1885 and became a director in 1891, when he also began his first term as a deputy of the Sao Paulo state assembly. Until his death in 1927, Mesquita guided the newspaper's growth in all respects--editorial, political, technological, and economic. Julio de Mesquita Filho…

In the "United States v. the 'Progressive'," the United States government took a small left-wing magazine to court to prevent publication of an article on how a hydrogen bomb works. Amidst great controversy over what the article described and what data were secret and what were not, a federal judge granted an injunction against the…

This paper is based on a review of the literature that included reports from the Inter-American Press Association's general assembly in Los Angeles in October 1984, the mid-year meeting of the Inter-American Press Association in Panama City in March 1985, and the 1983 world press freedom review of the International Press Institute. Other material…

Describes what happened when presidents of various state universities in Florida tried to act as publishers of campus newspapers. (LJR)

This report traces the development of the Egyptian press, from its origin with the arrival of the first printing press in 1789 to the present free press policies of Anwar Sadat. Because political struggle and social reform have accompanied the educational and cultural progress of Egypt, the news publications have traditionally been utilitarian.…

Kenya's dozen or more newspapers and 50 news sheets edited and published by Africans in the turbulent 1945-52 preindependence period were condemned as irresponsible, inflammatory, antiwhite, and seditious by the Kenya colonial government, and this characterization has been accepted by many scholars and journalists, including Africans. There is…

A number of scholars have found that wartime conditions often bring about conflict between the press and the military. This study documents the various incidents between the United States Army and various Mexican and United States newspaper editors that led to at least ten cases of newspaper suppression, the occasional use of prior censorship, and…

Written to accompany the television course "Communications and Education," this guide consists of 30 units to accompany each of the 30 programs. Subjects covered include: democracy, communications, freedom of speech and of press, privacy and the right to know, censorship and obscenity, propaganda, the comprehensive high school, education,…

An examination of the changes in press laws after India gained its independence in 1947 shows how a free press is shaped mostly by the structure and evolution of the democratic society that it is intended to serve. The most salient features that have characterized the Indian press, from the early nineteenth century to the present day, are…

This selection of readings, primarily intended for a college journalism course, discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the major sources of the public news--the wire services, newspapers, and television. The first part of the book deals with the context of mass news and serves as an introduction to some of the crucial ideas shaping thinking…