Pleading the First: What Journalists do every day

The First Amendment to the Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law impeding the rights of freedom of speech, religion, press, right to protest, and right to assemble." The First Amendment dictates many of the actions that journalists take in their daily lives on the job.

Freedom of Speech is important because without this, a major right in the United States would not be allowed, and that is that people have the right to say what is on their mind without having to worry about consequence from government. Journalists use this whenever they have to write an opinion or type up a controversial story, and the Amendment protects them from potential backlash that could come from people who may not want the writer to say such things.

Freedom of Press also greatly affects the media because it is in this sense that any outlet can have an equal chance to succeed in the market of mass media. Because the government cannot sanction one news source as "the official one", this allows free speech to prosper in the press, and lets each outlet adapt its own identity as a choice for where people can get their news. And this freedom to choose what people read is an essential part of what makes America the land that it is today.