Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg spoke at a gathering of The American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington on April 17, 1964.
The annual convention was a particularly contentious one, with accusations flying over Newspaper coverage of the recent assassination of President Kennedy.
Felix R. McKnight, executive editor of the Dallas Times Herald, told the opening session of the ASNE’s 1964 convention there was some great reporting from Dallas. But, he there also was “planned distortion” by some of the news media.
Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg the convention’s main speaker of the day, touched on the same general subject without reference to the assassination when he suggested revision of the ASNE Code of Ethics by the addition of a section on crime reporting. “When the greatest degree of fidelity of purpose was demanded, the American press faltered,” he said. Goldberg went on to say some persons” believe that freedom of the press and the right to a fair trail and personal privacy cannot exist together. “I, for one, cannot agree that these rights are incompatible or divisible; that one must be sacrificed if the other is to survive,” he said.
Goldberg said the press had the duty to defend the entire Bill of Rights, not just the First Amendment’s guarantee. of a free press. Suppression of crime or any other news is intolerable, he added. But he said, the use of labels such as “killer” and “hoodlum” in connection with suspects could overstep the bounds and make selection of fair juries difficult.
Arthur Goldberg suggested that the ASNE itself “revive and refurbish” its code of ethics and add specific standards of crime reporting. “Under the bill of rights, the prime responsibility for assuring that the press does not unduly invade the rights of privacy and fair trial rests not with government, as it does in many parts of the world, but with the press itself,” he said.
Here is that complete address, as it was presented to the American Society Of Newspaper Editors on April 17, 1964.
