Phones at help centers across the country rang Saturday, a day after broadcasters halted the transmission of analog signals long depended on by many people without cable or satellite television.
In less than 24 hours all full-power broadcast TV stations in the U.S. will flip a switch to stop broadcasting their analog TV signals and will only broadcast TV signals in digital. And for millions who are unprepared, it could mean lights out on their favorite TV shows.
The case of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" on national television -- and subsequent fines against CBS -- will be re-examined at the order of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday federal regulators have the authority to clamp down on the broadcast TV networks that air isolated cases of profanity, known as "fleeting expletives."
National Public Radio, already strong online with free downloads from many of its shows, is boosting its digital ambitions with Monday's introduction of social-networking features akin to Facebook
Tom and Ray Magliozzi are not what you'd call an overnight success story. The two MIT-educated car mechanics first started offering car repair advice over the air on a local Boston station in 1977. A decade elapsed before National Public Radio picked the show up and distributed it on its national network. Since then Car Talk has gone on to become the most highly-rated and financially-successful program on public radio.
The Supreme Court has rejected a conservative group's legal fight to air commercials promoting a movie critical of Sen. Hillary Clinton.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to jump back into the free speech debate over whether broadcast television networks should be penalized for indecent or vulgar language that slips through inadvertently on a live or unscripted broadcast.
Frustrated by the nebulousness of the Internet, a federal judge reverses an order to shut down a muckraking website. Has U.S. justice been outmaneuvered?
A lawsuit against Wikileaks may cast a pall on the massive interplay of information flowing on the web
Phones at help centers across the country rang Saturday, a day after broadcasters halted the transmission of analog signals long depended on by many people without cable or satellite television.
In less than 24 hours all full-power broadcast TV stations in the U.S. will flip a switch to stop broadcasting their analog TV signals and will only broadcast TV signals in digital. And for millions who are unprepared, it could mean lights out on their favorite TV shows.
The case of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" on national television -- and subsequent fines against CBS -- will be re-examined at the order of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday federal regulators have the authority to clamp down on the broadcast TV networks that air isolated cases of profanity, known as "fleeting expletives."
National Public Radio, already strong online with free downloads from many of its shows, is boosting its digital ambitions with Monday's introduction of social-networking features akin to Facebook
Tom and Ray Magliozzi are not what you'd call an overnight success story. The two MIT-educated car mechanics first started offering car repair advice over the air on a local Boston station in 1977. A decade elapsed before National Public Radio picked the show up and distributed it on its national network. Since then Car Talk has gone on to become the most highly-rated and financially-successful program on public radio.
The Supreme Court has rejected a conservative group's legal fight to air commercials promoting a movie critical of Sen. Hillary Clinton.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to jump back into the free speech debate over whether broadcast television networks should be penalized for indecent or vulgar language that slips through inadvertently on a live or unscripted broadcast.
Frustrated by the nebulousness of the Internet, a federal judge reverses an order to shut down a muckraking website. Has U.S. justice been outmaneuvered?
A lawsuit against Wikileaks may cast a pall on the massive interplay of information flowing on the web
Okay, all of the ballots are in for this week's influential National Public Radio college football poll ... well, actually, I'm the only one with a ballot in the NPR poll; everybody else at NPR has more important things to attend to ... and here's the news: the voters have decided to call off the poll for 2007. Instead, the official NPR poll has decided that any team that wants to can declare itself the national college football champion this year.
Hundreds of students turned out at Colorado State University to speak their minds on whether the student newspaper's editor should lose his job over four words.
The College Republicans, a student organization at Colorado State University, weren't planning anything special for the last week of September.
Two University of Florida police officers were placed on leave Tuesday after using an electronic stun gun to subdue a student at a campus forum. Read an account of the incident from a student who was there.
A judge bans the word from a sexual assault case, sparking debate over freedom of speech and the right to a fair trial
Black Sunday has come and gone, and Internet radio has managed to live and play for another day.
One Supreme Court justice says his fellow conservatives are "too dismissive" of government efforts to ensure racial diversity in schools. Another more liberal member says those on the right did "serious violence" to a high school student's free speech rights.
Was it a pro-drug banner or just a silly joke? Either way, the Supreme Court says it isn't protected by the First Amendment, setting a new (but fair) limit on student free speech
The Supreme Court ruled against a former high school student Monday in the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner case -- a split decision that limits students' free speech rights.
Notorious prisoners' artwork, notes and even nail clippings are hot items online. But a new law might put a stop to it
There is an ongoing battle between filmmaker Ken Burns and a coalition of Hispanic veterans, organizations and lawmakers over plans by Burns and the Public Broadcasting System to release a documentary on World War II that ignores the 500,000 Hispanics who served in the U.S. military during the war.
Don Imus, the tousled and acerbic radio host whose racial remarks engendered a media storm that triggered a swift upending of his career, is not going away quietly even if the imbroglio has all but disappeared from the national conversation in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre.
Internet radio broadcasts, jeopardized by a royalty payment ruling earlier this year, would get a reprieve under bipartisan legislation introduced in Congress.
If you are more than about 45 years old, you probably can't forget when you first heard a 1972 monologue by comedian George Carlin titled "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." Ordinarily w...
Frank Stanton, the broadcasting executive who as president of CBS for 26 years helped build it into the "Tiffany Network," died on Sunday at age 98.
The Senate began debate Monday on a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit the desecration of the American flag, the latest in a series of election-year votes pushed by the chamber's Republican leaders.
The Supreme Court on Monday struck down Vermont's strict limits on state campaign spending limits, finding the laws unfairly violate the free speech rights of candidates to raise money and publicize their views.
The crackdown on broadcast indecency that began with an exposed breast turns out to have legs - as well as serious consequences for the television business.
A divided Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that government workers who blow the whistle on alleged illegal conduct do not deserve First Amendment protection that would automatically shield them from discipline from their bosses.
One evening this winter the Italian talk-show host Enrico Mentana played a clip for his guest, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in which Oscar-winning actor Roberto Benigni mocked Berlusconi's fiv...
Richard Ceballos says he was only doing his job, and was punished by his superiors as a result.
Former "Baywatch" star Brooke Burns, who broke her neck last month after diving into her backyard pool, credits a friend, a paramedic firefighter, with saving her life.
I first met Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the former chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), when he supported Jack Kemp for president in 1988. I ran into him again in 1996, when he was working in Steve Forbes' presidential campaign.
The former chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting overstepped his bounds in several areas, including initiating contracts without the board's approval, and may have let politics have a hand in picking a new board president, according to a report released Tuesday by the corporation's inspector general.
Jenny Paulino stands accused of running a prostitution ring on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Sen. Arlen Specter, a busy man with multiple duties, was understandably unprepared July 11 as he chaired a rare Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing about public television.
Kenneth Y. Tomlinson's tenure as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been sponsored by the letter C, for controversy.
A top official at National Public Radio blamed a proposed $100 million federal budget cut for public broadcasting on "irresponsible" charges of political bias made by the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting itself.
Former engineering professor Sami Al-Arian was used to being in public. Now he must travel behind tinted windows.
Five months after Motley Crue's lead singer shouted the F-word on national television, the heavy metal band has launched a legal battle that could transform how indecency is defined -- and punished.
Are broadcasters angling for a courtroom battle over smut?
"Wall $treet Week with Fortune," public television's weekly financial news program that replaced the long-running "Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser," is being pulled from the air after three years of broadcast.
A disgruntled client of famous defense attorney Johnnie Cochran provided a high-profile chance for the Supreme Court on Tuesday to weigh the constitutional benefits and pitfalls of injunctions against public speech.
In 1991, the acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Joe Wilson, sheltered 800 Americans at the embassy in Baghdad during Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Twelve years later, Wilson was thrust back onto the international stage when he accused President Bush of misleading the American people into another war with Iraq.
Pat Mitchell, the embattled president and chief executive of the Public Broadcasting Service, will not seek a third three-year term.
Thanks to a last-minute court ruling, Jonathan Morgan was able to share the religious origin of the candy cane with his elementary-school classmates at this year's winter-break party at Thomas Elementary School in Plano, Texas.
On December 6, the Supreme Court decided San Diego v. John Roe. The case posed the question of how far the First Amendment's free speech protection reaches to protect a police officer in a uniform. The lawsuit was brought by a police officer who was fired for making pornographic videos of himself in apparently official garb, and distributing them for sale on the web (along with other items).
Last week, the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari (that is, certification for review) in a case decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
The nation's top decency cops could probably use a holiday.
The nation's top decency cops could probably use a holiday.
On December 14, Ambrose Kappos -- the alleged stalker of singer Sheryl Crow -- was acquitted by a New York State jury.
A federal appeals court barred the government Monday from blocking funds to colleges and universities that deny access to military recruiters because of the Pentagon's policy banning openly gay men and women.
Opie and Anthony return to radio Monday, but good luck finding them on the public airwaves.
The FBI, no longer content with working to maintain order at political events, is now preemptively identifying and interrogating ("interviewing") possible demonstrators. It has summarized this strategy in a memo.
Julia Child, who revolutionized cooking in the United States with her cooking school, cookbooks and television shows, has died, according to a statement from her publisher, Alfred A. Knopf. She was 91.
Last week, the Democratic National Convention (DNC) ended. But the First Amendment issues that were raised there did not. Indeed, they are likely to continue on indefinitely -- recurring at the upcoming Republican National Convention (RNC), and similar public events raising intense security concerns.
Protesters at the Democratic National Convention say their designated area outside the FleetCenter infringes on their safety and free speech rights.
And what about Bob Edwards?
Bob Edwards still isn't getting any sleep.
A jury in Idaho on Thursday acquitted a Saudi graduate student of charges that he helped terrorists recruit and raise money through Internet sites
Several journalism groups are expressing outrage over the actions of a deputy marshal who forced the erasure of two journalists' audio recordings of a speech by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at a Mississippi high school.
Howard Stern was permanently booted Thursday from six stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, the nation's largest radio chain, after the Federal Communications Commission announced that it would impose a $495,000 fine on the company for indecent content aired on his show.
A group of disgruntled moviegoers will settle their suit out of court against a nonexistent film critic, whose glowing reviews of mediocre films prompted a class-action suit alleging filmgoers had been "tricked" into theaters.
On February 26, California Superior Court Judge Roger Beauchesne issued a tentative ruling in a civil suit against Scott Peterson, who is charged with the murders of his wife, Laci, and their unborn child.
A lawyer for the Bush administration has argued that the U.S. Supreme Court should uphold a law that protects children from Internet pornography.
On February 1, in a now world-famous moment, during CBS's broadcast of MTV's Super Bowl halftime show, Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson's breast. The breast was covered only by a sun-shaped piece of jewelry attached to her nipple piercing.
Faster than you can say "election year," the breast seen 'round the world has given rise to a federal probe of the Super Bowl halftime show. That's right. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell is investigating the entire halftime show, not just the breast-baring finale.
Is wearing a masked hood at a public rally the same as shouting "Fire!" inside a crowded theater -- or is it closer in significance to burning an American flag?
FCC Commissioner Michael Powell said Wednesday he is calling for a dramatic increase in fines for broadcasters that allow the "F-word" and other obscenities on the air.
The Free Speech Movement that began in Berkeley in 1964 is credited with inspiring the vast number of anti-Vietnam war protests in the '60s.
Editor's note: As part of our coverage of the 2004 election season, CNN.com is sending correspondents to the colleges where they studied to report on issues affecting today's young voters. In this edition, Meriah Doty returns to her alma mater, University of California at Berkeley.
In June 1996, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote a pair of tough op-ed pieces accusing Nike Corp. of cruelly exploiting cheap Asian labor. He chided CEO Philip Knight, whose Nike stock was ...
Retired schoolteacher Claire Beckmann last year stumbled upon a new get-rich-quick scheme. Ignoring internet startups, IPOs, and hedge funds, Beckmann went straight for beat-up furniture.
Watching the national drama unfold in Russia, one question burns in TV viewers' minds: Why do Moscow correspondents say Mos-coe (as in "Roscoe") and not Mos-cow, as most Americans pronounce it? Nei...
The cost of watching "free" television is about to go up, thanks to regulators in Washington. Beginning next year, new TV sets must come equipped with a V-chip, a device that can be used to block T...
Christmas hurtles toward us at its usual menacing pace, and in self-defense I reach for the catalogues that pile up beneath my mailbox. As I leaf through them I have begun to notice a strange pheno...
ASK MR. STATISTICS
One would not wish to overstate the significance of the event, but this year your servant got it right. On April 1 he listened to National Public Radio's All Things Considered feature and guessed c...
Commercial free speech is on a roll. Suddenly getting respect in the Supreme Court, it has won two big ones this spring. The Supremes held by six to three that Cincinnati had no right to bar commer...
AT&T is breaking up again, this time with the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, PBS's nightly TV news show. After pumping more than $100 million into the program since 1983, AT&T will end its sponsorship in...
Possibly it was the time (about two hours) spent by your servant hovering over the transcript of oral arguments in The City of Cincinnati v. Discovery Network Inc. et al., an act put on recently by...
Your servant has been boning up on the great Joe Camel dispute, which takes a lot of boning. Like an amoeba, the dispute keeps fissiparously dividing itself into subsidiary disputes: Are those Came...
As always happens during ''pledge week'' on public television, the latest round (mid-March) featured a certain amount of bitter back talk by your servant anytime the babbling pitchpersons came on-s...
Who said PBS is a bastion of liberals? Tony Brown, 58, host of public television's Tony Brown's Journal, has joined the number of blacks who think social programs alone can't cure poverty. Says Bro...
We begin this item by quoting from a recent Washington Post article datelined South Bend, Indiana, and describing certain goings-on in JR's Kitty Kat Lounge there: ''A red light revolves overhead a...
Even though belt tightening is the order of the day, big corporations are increasing their support of the Public Broadcasting System. In 1990 they pledged $56.6 million in production money to major...
Your correspondent cannot seem to stay away from the media in this column. He now notes that a brand-new question has tiptoed on tiny feet into the towering debate about sex discrimination in the m...
Hey, remember the Free Speech Movement? That was the great crusade at Berkeley in 1964 -- the New Left uprising that initiated the great student revolution of the Sixties. It seems hard to credit t...
BY THE TIME Ronald Reagan heads back to the ranch for good, he will have appointed about half the judges on the federal district and appeals courts. Will this judicial legacy transform America as m...
In a case with important First Amendment implications, a U.S. District Court judge has ruled that a financial newsletter falls under the jurisdiction of the 45-year-old Investment Advisers Act and ...
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