Recent Supreme Court decisions have fundamentally altered the attorney's right to advertise. This potentially revolutionary revision in prescribed professional communications has paradoxically had ambiguous results. Despite the freedom to advertise, most attorneys forego this opportunity to maximize profits, expand clientele, or merely enhance…

The Report of the 1999 Commission on Public Relations Education recommends that undergraduates study the legal and ethical issues involved in the practice of public relations. When the educator/author first began teaching a Communication Law course at Northwest Missouri State, it was offered through the Mass Communication Department, was required…

Describes state open-records laws and school district policies and procedures for responding to citizen requests for public records information. Includes information about requirement in recently enacted No Child Left Behind Act for districts to provide the military with access to student directory information. (PKP)

Disclosure of information to the investing public is a primary purpose of federal regulation of the securities industry and one of the primary duties and responsibilities of financial public relations practitioners. Disclosure requirements are numerous, with most mandating publicly held corporations to disclose information. Some requirements,…

An examination of recent cases involving press releases and public relations writers indicates that courts have devised several ways, including the use of guidelines set out by the Ollman (from "Ollman v. Evans") four-factor test, to make the distinction between fact and opinion. The four-factor test helps courts to assess (1) whether…

Under the "commercial speech doctrine," corporations were restricted for many years from speaking out on public issues or engaging in certain advertising practices. This "doctrine" was based on a case from the 1940s, in which the court ruled that purely commercial advertising had no constitutional protection from government…

Teaching public relations from an American perspective should be reconsidered: current textbooks barely mention multicultural and international concerns except in most cases as a secondary issue. The current paradigm emphasizes the media with the first amendment serving as the cornerstone of the emphasis. The American approach to international and…

Discusses steps taken by the Idaho Library Association to defeat an antigay ballot initiative by means of a coordinated, statewide public relations campaign. The ballot, known as Proposition One, would have violated First Amendment rights and caused library materials to be censored to determine whether they addressed homosexuality. (Author/JKP)

The first part of the proceedings of this conference of journalism historians contains the following 21 papers: "'Life' Magazine and the Mercury 7 Astronauts: A Historic Case of Media Control" (Ginger Rudeseal Carter); "Newspaper Contempt between the Wars" (Richard Scheidenhelm); "Crosses Holding Off a Vampire: How Four…

Describes increasing attempts to censor school libraries, how teachers' groups and the courts have reacted to this censorship, and what schools can do. (JM)