The Bill of Rights guaranteed U.S. newspapers their freedom, but it never guaranteed that they wouldn't have to fight to keep it. Last week, Georgia's daily and weekly newspapers were fighting furiously to keep their freedom from being whittled away.
Their enemy was Georgia's Governor Herman Talmadge, who had inherited "Ol Gene" Talmadge's hatred for "them lying newspapers." For a while, Herman had tried to fight his press critics with scurrilous attacks in his own weekly Statesman ("The PeopleEditor; "Herman E. TalmadgeAssociate Editor"). Then Herman's men introduced three tough press-control bills into the state legislature.
The bills:
¶ Declared newspapers "subject to regulation by...
