Two recent books published by the University of California Press add contemporary critical voices to this literature while calling for significant, indeed dramatic, reform. The opening section of Powe's book explores the historical traditions of American press freedom, examining early state practices and the Constitution's framing period. Powe is appropriately skeptical of evolutionary theories of rights and, indeed, he takes on the conventional view associated with Leonard Levy that underscores the seditious libel heritage of the First Amendment. Instead, a more liberal perspective is offered to counteract such time-honored accounts. Moving to consideration of press freedoms during crisis times, Powe argues that the Sedition Acts ran against the grain of the framing period in a strong synthetic account.
Similar treatment is given to the tainted legacy of press rights across several crisis settings.
The second section of Powe's analysis moves beyond the historical doctrinal recitation of his opening chapters to a more openly prescriptive accounting of case outcomes in the specific issue areas of libel, injunctions, media access, and antitrust litigation. Above all else, however, the discussion of specific press freedom issues reveals checkered decisional patterns that offer no discernible enduring principles. Throughout this analysis Powe relates the theoretical underpinnings and historical foundations of media law to the pragmatic realities of the cases under scrutiny. The analysis illustrates that, ultimately, neither model fully justifies the full range of press freedom claims and that many such claims are, above all else, self-serving. On this level it has, at best, mixed success.