Editorial: Press needs freedom of commercial speech

Court activities in Virginia are troubling for the freedom of college journalismThe lifeblood of any newspaper is advertising. We sell ads and some of that money goes toward reporting and covering news. So when a government or school tries to limit certain types of advertising, it’d better be for a good reason.

Two weeks ago, a federal judge agreed that one state’s limits existed with good reason. The Cavalier Daily of the University of Virginia and the Collegiate Times of Virginia Tech — both independently run like The Pitt News — sought to end restrictions the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board imposed on alcohol advertising that were causing “serious financial burden” to the newspapers.

The logic behind the ban is that schools need to work to combat underage drinking. If “governmental interest is substantial,” regulatory burdens can be placed on commercial speech, in line with the Central Hudson test, the governing judicial precedence with regard to alcohol advertising.  Prohibiting advertising for alcohol, in the court’s mind, helps the Board achieve its goal of reducing underage drinking and is thus, justifiably regulated.

This court is wrong. There is no evidence that alcohol advertising in a college newspaper creates a tendency for underage individuals to drink. By the time a student has picked up the paper, he or she has already decided whether or not to drink — all advertising does is shift people toward specific locations or distributors.

Stopping alcohol advertising would not send thousands of students streaming into the school’s libraries on Friday night. Alcohol-related messages pervade our culture so deeply, the presence of ads in a student newspaper does little to shift the needle in either direction.

Other federal courts agree with this position. In 2004, The Pitt News came out victorious over the Pennsylvania attorney general, State Police and Liquor Control Board, which had passed a similar alcohol-advertising ban in Pennsylvania. Now Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion for the unanimous panel, which said that the state’s claims that the elimination of ads would “slacken the demand for alcohol” were “counterintuitive and unsupported by any evidence.”

Given that it will take a lot more than different advertising policies to control reckless and underage drinking, judges need to favor strongly on the side of free speech in cases where governing bodies attempt to restrict college newspapers. The opinions section of the newspaper is meant to sway readers in certain directions on issues. Advertising is meant to shift people to consume certain products. The government should limit neither division of a newspaper. The right of a free press should almost always trump policy directives by the government.

Otherwise, the newspaper just becomes a tool in schemes to change social direction or policy. Editorial control is not based on what is fit to print, but on what leads to the greatest total level of social good. Theoretically, anything deemed necessary to satisfy a governing agency’s “substantial interests” could be inserted into the paper, with things in opposition removed.

Governments have other ways to try to control policy: public service announcements or simple, stronger enforcement or current rules can be enough. But to attempt to identify causes of uncivil behavior and force offending institutions to comply to certain idealized standards is ineffective and unconstitutional.

Again, The Pitt News already won its battle against a state agency. Now it’s The Cavalier Daily and the Collegiate Times who get to defend their rights as the Virginia case moves its way through the court system. Hopefully, the law will again rule in favor of the freedom of the press and against ineffective government regulations.