Page 98 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

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MIAMI HERALD
TORNILLO
of his service to V. students and to the field. He was the 1997 recipient of the Paul
J. Deutschmann Award for Excellence in Research from the Association for
Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. (See also Co-orientation;
Family Communication Patterns.)
SOURCES: Jay G. Blumler, Jack M. McLeod, and Karl Erik Rosengren, eds., Com-
paratively Speaking: Communication and Culture across Space and Time, 1992; Jack
M. McLeod, Katie Daly, and Zhongshi Guo, "Community Integration, Local Media Use,
and Democratic Processes," Communication Research, April 1996.
Lowndes F. Stephens

MEDIA LEGAL ISSUES. See Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798; Censorship;
Deregulation of the Federal Communications Commission; Equal Time Rule;
Fairness Doctrine; Freedom of Information Act; Freedom of Speech; Freedom
of the Press; Joint Operating Agreements; Libel.

MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS. See Corporation for Public Broadcasting; C-
SPAN; The Freedom Forum; Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

MEDIA TECHNIQUES. See Endorsements; Hoaxes; Leak; Muckraker; Na-
tional Election Service (NES); Pack Journalism; Political Cartoons; Political
Columnists; Political Satirists; Sound Bites.

MIAMI HERALD V. TORNILLO established the First Amendment right of
newspapers to refuse to print a reply demanded by a candidate for political office
whom it had attacked. The case arose under the 1913 Florida Election Code,
which required newspapers to publish such demanded replies. Pat Tornillo, a
teachers' union leader, was a Democratic candidate for the state legislature in
1972, when the Herald twice criticized him in editorials. Tornillo demanded the
opportunity to reply and, when refused, sued the paper. The trial court found
the state law unconstitutional, but the Florida Supreme Court reversed that de-
cision, so the Herald appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In part Tornillo's
argument was that since such a right of reply is required for broadcast media,
it should be required for all media. The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, saying
that this would violate the First Amendment. The Court said that requiring pub-
lication was simply the other side of the coin of censorship, which prohibits
publication, and that the First Amendment must leave it to editors to decide
what to publish. Most newspapers would, in fact, permit a reply in the form of
a letter to the editor, and possibly the Miami Herald would have done so, too,
if Tornillo had simply sent a letter and not raised the legal issue.

SOURCES: Miami Herald v. Tornillo (418 U.S. 441); Wayne Overbeck, Major Prin-
ciples of Media Law, 1996 edition.
Marc Edge