Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 514

Cite as: 558 U. S. 310 (2010) 

353 

Opinion of the Court 

inform  the  public  about  the  same  issue.  This  differential 
treatment cannot be squared with the First Amendment. 

There  is  simply  no  support  for  the  view  that  the  First 
Amendment, as originally understood, would permit the sup­
pression  of  political  speech  by  media  corporations.  The 
Framers  may  not  have  anticipated  modern  business  and 
media  corporations.  See  McIntyre  v.  Ohio  Elections 
Comm’n,  514  U. S.  334,  360–361  (1995)  (Thomas,  J.,  concur­
ring in judgment).  Yet television networks and major news­
papers  owned  by  media  corporations  have  become  the  most 
important  means  of  mass  communication  in  modern  times. 
The  First  Amendment  was  certainly  not  understood  to  con­
done the suppression of political speech in society’s most sa­
lient media.  It was understood as a response to the repres­
sion of speech and the press that had existed in England and 
the heavy taxes on the press that were imposed in the Colo­
nies.  See McConnell, supra, at 252–253 (opinion of Scalia, 
J.);  Grosjean,  297  U. S.,  at  245–248;  Near,  283  U. S.,  at  713– 
714.  The  great  debates  between  the  Federalists  and  the 
Anti-Federalists over our founding document were published 
and expressed in the most important means of mass commu­
nication of that era—newspapers owned by individuals.  See 
McIntyre, 514 U. S., at 341–343; id., at 367 (Thomas, J., con­
curring  in  judgment).  At  the  founding,  speech  was  open, 
comprehensive, and vital to society’s deﬁnition of itself; there 
were no limits on the sources of speech and knowledge.  See 
B.  Bailyn,  Ideological  Origins  of  the  American  Revolution  5 
(1967)  (“Any  number  of  people  could  join  in  such  proliferat­
ing  polemics,  and  rebuttals  could  come  from  all  sides”); 
G. Wood, Creation of the American Republic 1776–1787, p. 6 
(1969)  (“[I]t  is  not  surprising  that  the  intellectual  sources 
of [the Americans’] Revolutionary thought were profuse and 
various”).  The Framers may have been unaware of certain 
types  of  speakers  or  forms  of  communication,  but  that  does 
not  mean  that  those  speakers  and  media  are  entitled  to  less 
First  Amendment  protection  than  those  types  of  speakers