A right to the news? Moral justification and legal protection of citizens’ right to information
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Abstract
Could citizens have a right to be offered quality news? Some argue that such a right is impracticable because the obligations it would generate would entail a de facto suppression of journalistic freedoms. In this article, I argue that this problem only affects the right to the news if conceived as an individual legal right. Yet, conceived as a moral right, citizens’ right to the news is not only compatible with journalistic freedoms but also the moral foundation of the journalistic institution itself. Moreover, I argue that citizens’ right to the news can (and should) have significant legal effects, as it imposes upon public administrations an obligation to implement measures to protect it, which I classify into direct and indirect protections.
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