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ESPN Reporter suspension

"Prior Restraint is such a severe form of censorship that any form of it, even now, evokes feelings of distrust in many citizens, legislators, and jurists in England and the United States." (T&H, 244) This quote from the book really stuck out to me throughout the whole 9th Chapter because of how much that same censorship is going on now with the trump administration. In an article from the New York Times, they talk about the suspension of Jemele Hill, an ESPN commentator, for her tweets against the President of the U.S. and for the coach of the Dallas Cowboys. Trump in several tweets suggested she be fired, thus censoring her and her opinions.

New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/sports/football/jemele-hill-suspended-espn.html

Comments

  1. I just saw this story on the news earlier this week. I think in the midst of all of the things going on in the NFL regarding social justice and the President, this is a fairly inappropriate move to make by ESPN. These opinions are necessary and I completely understand why the public would take this as a shady decision and see it as untrustworthy. Do you think that this was a good decision by ESPN? Do you think that this reporters opinions were harmful to society, or rather a productive insight into a intricate issue? I think that it is important to hear people out, no matter their opinions. It is productive to learn about where people come from and why they think that way. By shutting people out, we are just being ignorant to society.

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  2. I found this story to be really interesting for quite a few reasons. The first of which is that Jemele HIll is a black woman who is in a field dominated by primarily men. That creates a very interesting context for her message. The second part of this story is that she actually apologized for her comments stating that ESPN had every right to suspend her. The important part thing to note here is that she was suspended for violating ESPN's social media policy and that's important because companies as we know can have their own rules for what their employees can and cannot post. Overall, I felt like Jemele HIll's tweets were not that outlandish and certainly didn't deserve a suspension. However, with that being said I also can see how they would violate a social media policy.

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  3. I agree that prior restraint does evoke feelings of distrust from citizens about our government. Its a forming of putting a cap on freedom of speech. I don't understand how someone could have the power to ban or stop someone from reporting or using their right to free speech in order to report back to their communities or citizens of the United States. I don't understand how the President of the United States would have the power to do something like this.
    This reminds me of when Donald Trump was not letting certain news outlets report inside the white house. He didn't like the way they were making him look, so he banned them from coming into the white house. I feel like this also would cross over into freedom of the press. The press is one of the only things that will keep our country free, as it holds people, especially powerful officials, reliable. It is crazy to me that Donal Trump was allowed to stop them from reporting on things happening in the white house, and current events taking place. This is a right to citizens to be able to know what is going on.

    Farhi, Paul. CNN, New York Times, other media barred from White House briefing. n.d. .

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    Replies
    1. ^^^^^^^
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/cnn-new-york-times-other-media-barred-from-white-house-briefing/2017/02/24/4c22f542-fad5-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html?utm_term=.604fe1973422

      Delete

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