holding that “a state statute granting a political candidate a right to equal space to reply to criticism" and attacks on his> record by a newspaper violates the guarantees of a free press”; noting that the “statute exacts a penalty on the basis of the content of a newspaper” and aliso “intru[des] into the function of editors”
How later courts described this case
- holding that “a state statute granting a political candidate a right to equal space to reply to criticism" and attacks on his> record by a newspaper violates the guarantees of a free press”; noting that the “statute exacts a penalty on the basis of the content of a newspaper” and aliso “intru[des] into the function of editors”
- holding that “the choice of material to 11 go into a newspaper, and the decisions made as to limitations on the size and content of the paper, 12 and treatment of public issues and public officials—whether fair or unfair—constitute the exercise 13 of editorial control and judgment” protected by the First Amendment
- holding that a Florida statute ■ requiring newspapers to grant political candidates equal space to answer criticism in the newspaper was unconstitutional, even though “the statute in question here has not prevented the Miami Herald from saying anything it wished”
- holding that Florida right-of-reply statute violated the First Amendment because it compelled newspaper editors or publishers to publish that which reason tells them should not be published and that this was a penalty based on the content of the newspaper
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Rehnquist joins,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion which, as I understand it, addresses only “right of reply” statutes and implies no view upon the constitutionality of “retraction” statutes affording plaintiffs able to prove defamatory falsehoods a statutory action to require publication of a retraction. *259 See generally Note, Vindication of the Reputation of a Public Official, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 1730 , 1739-1747 (1967).