I thought I'd totally rip of Juris here and post my debate resolutions here.

"This House Believes That the right to a free press is a higher priority than the right to a fair trial."

For the sake of this topic, argue which is more important.

Now, it is important that both of these rights are upheld in the best possible manner. However, the media does tend to place biases on anything they are covering. This can, one way or another, affect the jury's decision, and will ultimately violate the defendant's right to a fair trial. Obviously, no good can come of this. For example, take a look at the case of Sheppard v. Maxwell, 1966. In 1954, Sam Sheppard was convicted of the murder of his wife. However, Sheppard claimed a third person had committed the crime, but nobody believed him.

How is this an example of the negative affects of the media? Well, before the trial, newspaper headlines screamed: "Why isn't Sam Sheppard in Jail?" Furthermore, the media had taken over the courtroom. Sam Sheppard could not whisper in the ear of his counsel without someone overhearing it. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that Sheppard was unfairly convicted. In his retrial, he was acquitted of all charges. This is only one example of where the media will negative affect the trail, and breach a defendant's rights.

Secondly, seeing as both are constitutional rights, they should be treated equally. Neither should have priority over the other. If we give priority to the press over the rights of a trial, that is only the first of many. It will escalate to other rights in other situations, and we will just end up with a mess on our hands. Every right should be provided to every citizen in an equal matter. None are more important than the others.

So, what are your thoughts?

who made that resolution? that is the most retarded prompt!

Or if the media could just report the news objectively.

by objectively I mean THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THIS and shut the hell up. Have debates or whatever but don't make it one sided as hell like they always do.

why would the media do that? News on tv and in papers is entertainment to drag in the highest readership. Why would they say "we don't know whether this man is innocent or guilty" when they can say "SHOCKING NEWS: VICIOUS MURDERER STILL WALKS FREE!" and get all the stupid right-wing people to buy their garbage and claim to be morally outraged.
The media's never been objective and it never will because people are dumb and like being told what to think.

oh I know that

It would just be so much easier instead of having all the dumb people learn how to interpret the news, having the news be straight forward and bullshit free. But we don't live in a perfect world now do we?

Edit: But what really pisses me off the most is how much HATE and IGNORANCE the media can spread. Yeah, there are ignorant people who just hate and will look for hate everywhere to give them reasons to hate others that are different.

But the thing I see is, you've got all these older men and women who aren't as deep into the internet and finding the other side are watching this crap and they just suck it up like sponges without even thinking about it. Of course yeah you've got to be pretty dumb in the first place to not be like, "now wait a minute". But imo thats the MAIN problem with the media, they do not seem to realize (or care) how much hate they are actually spreading.

Look at what happened after 9/11, practically the whole western world jumped on the arab and muslim hatewagon because the media blurred the line between a muslim and a terrorist. Yes, there might have been that confusion before but not nearly to the degree that it hit after that event. They used those words and sort of flung them around without clearing up the definite difference between the two and since then the dumb masses just clung to that and WILL NOT LET GO like a baby with a security blanket.

who made that resolution? that is the most retarded prompt!

not really, this has become a pretty big issue. i've seen it mentioned quite a few times in regards to criminal prosecutions.

What are they going to do with the prisoners from Guantanamo bay? Give them a "fair" trial one by one until they legally determine who should still be imprisoned and who shouldn't? Where? In the United States?

yeah fucking right

The right to a fair trial seems more of a priority than freedom of press regarding that trial.  The media doesn't really need to report on many trials, as it's usually not the rest of the world's business. 

I'm not saying the media shouldn't report on them, but if they are interfering in any way, then they are potentially violating the rights of a human being.  Sure, trials can be interesting to watch and follow, but the freedom of press applies to a lot of other things.  Those other things are important to report on. 

in short, the media is gay, anybody who gets their news off of murdoch's empire is dumb, nationalist and racist.

Er. Does anybody have any thoughts from the other point of view? In favour of the resolution; that's the one I'm struggling with.

can you talk about europe or another country in this debate or is it strictly on the united states?

you could use them as an example because they seem to generally look into shit and interpret stuff alot better than lazy dumb country bumpkins

nah, that's totally bullshit. There's still the right-wing media empires telling dumb people what to think.

So I've come up with three points right now for the proposition side:

First off, allowing the media to broadcast or report about trails will increase fairness by adding the watchful public eye. By allowing the public to view the proceedings of a trial, it takes away the bias from the judiciary officials (ie judges), and prevents them from doing something that is entirely bias and unorthodox. This will help to ensure that the defendant's rights are being upheld, and is a reason why, initially, the freedom of the press takes priority over the right to a fair trail.

Secondly, by allowing the public to see the consequences of their actions, crime should be reduced. For example, if you were to see a man get sentenced to death for killing someone, chances are, you would not go out and kill someone in fear of being killed yourself. Essentially, we would be using the media as an "instrument for public control."

Third, the benefits of seeing someone sentenced for a crime puts people at ease, and puts entire communities at ease. For example, if a child were abducted from your neighbourhood, wouldn't you feel much better if you knew the perp was put behind bars for what he as done? Taking it even a step higher, look at the example of the Nuremburg Trials of the Nazi war criminals. It put the entire world at ease knowing that these terrible men were killed for the terrible crimes they have committed.

Thoughts?