Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 513.0

352  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Opinion of the Court 

Thus, under the Government’s reasoning, wealthy media cor­
porations could have their voices  diminished to put them on 
par  with  other  media  entities.  There  is  no  precedent  for 
permitting this under the First Amendment. 

The media exemption discloses further difﬁculties with the 
law  now  under  consideration.  There  is  no  precedent  sup­
porting  laws  that  attempt  to  distinguish  between  corpora­
tions which are deemed to be exempt as media corporations 
and  those  which  are  not.  “We  have  consistently  rejected 
the proposition that the institutional press has any constitu­
tional  privilege  beyond  that  of  other  speakers.”  Id.,  at  691 
(Scalia, J., dissenting) (citing Bellotti, 435 U. S., at 782); see 
Dun  &  Bradstreet,  Inc.  v.  Greenmoss  Builders,  Inc.,  472 
U. S. 749, 784 (1985) (Brennan, J., joined by Marshall, Black-
mun,  and  Stevens,  JJ.,  dissenting);  id.,  at  773  (White,  J., 
concurring  in  judgment).  With  the  advent  of  the  Internet 
and  the decline  of print  and broadcast  media, moreover,  the 
line between the media and others who wish to comment on 
political and social issues becomes far more blurred. 

The  law’s  exception  for  media  corporations  is,  on  its  own 
terms, all but an admission of the invalidity of the antidistor­
tion rationale.  And the exemption results in a further, sep­
arate  reason  for  ﬁnding  this  law  invalid:  Again  by  its  own 
terms, the law exempts some corporations but covers others, 
even  though  both  have  the  need  or  the  motive  to  communi­
cate  their  views.  The  exemption  applies  to  media  corpora­
tions  owned  or  controlled  by  corporations  that  have  diverse 
and  substantial  investments  and  participate  in  endeavors 
other than news.  So even assuming the most doubtful prop­
osition  that  a  news  organization  has  a  right  to  speak  when 
others  do  not,  the  exemption  would  allow  a  conglomerate 
that owns both a media business and an unrelated business to 
inﬂuence or control the media in order to advance its overall 
business  interest.  At  the  same  time,  some  other  corpora­
tion,  with  an  identical  business  interest  but  no  media  outlet 
in  its  ownership  structure,  would  be  forbidden  to  speak  or