Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-751.pdf
Page Number: 11.0

Cite as:  562 U. S. ____ (2011) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

interest; that is, a subject of general interest and of value 
and  concern  to  the  public,”  San  Diego,  supra,  at  83–84. 
See  Cox  Broadcasting  Corp.  v.  Cohn,  420  U. S.  469, 
492–494  (1975);  Time,  Inc.  v.  Hill,  385  U. S.  374,  387– 
388  (1967).  The  arguably  “inappropriate  or  controversial
character  of  a  statement  is  irrelevant  to  the  question 
whether it deals with a matter of public concern.”  Rankin 
v. McPherson, 483 U. S. 378, 387 (1987).

Our  opinion  in  Dun  &  Bradstreet,  on  the  other  hand, 
provides an example of speech of only private concern.  In 
that  case  we  held,  as  a  general  matter,  that  information 
about  a  particular  individual’s  credit  report  “concerns  no
public issue.”  472 U. S., at 762.  The content of the report,
we explained, “was speech solely in the individual interest
of  the  speaker  and  its  specific  business  audience.”    Ibid. 
That was confirmed by the fact that the particular report
was  sent  to  only  five  subscribers  to  the  reporting  service,
who  were  bound  not  to  disseminate  it  further.    Ibid.    To  
cite  another  example,  we  concluded  in  San  Diego  v.  Roe 
that,  in  the  context  of  a  government  employer  regulating
the speech of its employees, videos of an employee engag-
ing  in  sexually  explicit  acts  did  not  address  a  public  con-
cern;  the  videos  “did  nothing  to  inform  the  public  about
any  aspect  of  the  [employing  agency’s]  functioning  or
operation.”  543 U. S., at 84. 

Deciding whether speech is of public or private concern 
requires  us  to  examine  the  “ ‘content,  form,  and  context’ ” 
of that speech, “ ‘as revealed by the whole record.’ ”  Dun & 
Bradstreet, supra, at 761 (quoting Connick, supra, at 147– 
148).  As  in  other  First  Amendment  cases,  the  court  is 
obligated  “to  ‘make  an  independent  examination  of  the
whole  record’  in  order  to  make  sure  that  ‘the  judgment
does  not  constitute  a  forbidden  intrusion  on  the  field  of 
free  expression.’ ”    Bose  Corp.  v.  Consumers  Union  of 
United States, Inc., 466 U. S. 485, 499 (1984) (quoting New 
York  Times,  supra,  at  284–286).    In  considering  content,