NCJ Number
125028
Date Published
1990
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This study analyzed the States to determine whether social, economic, cultural, and political characteristics are positively or negatively related to press laws.
Abstract
The political characteristics examined were registered votes, Federal employees, local taxes, years of statehood, tenure of judges, election of judges, Society of Professional Journalists, and appellate judges per population. Economic characteristics were average income, blue-collar workers, bank loans, stock ownership, poverty-level residents, and jobless rate for 1980. Sociological characteristics were population, population density, population immobility, home ownership, blacks, ruralism, English natives, birth rate, crime rate, elderly, population between 25 and 40 years old, population growth in last decade, central city population, and suburban population. Cultural characteristics pertained to region of the Nation, church membership, lawyers, passports, artists, alcohol consumption, education level, and illiteracy. The seven press law provisions examined related to efforts to protect the press in gathering information. An eighth provision was the presence of voluntary bench-bar-press guidelines. There were 25 statistically significant correlation coefficients between the eight press law provisions and 43 State characteristics. Social measures were the most influential factors in determining press laws. 1 table, 23 footnotes.