speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

Notes
Cash programme by offering a new catalogue of "gifts." New York Times
C16 (July 29, 1992). A Harvard literature professor offered a persuasive
reading of Joe Camel as a phallic symbol. New York Times A21 (March
20, 1992) (oped).
Advertising can mislead doctors as well as children. A review by 150
doctors and clinical pharmacists of 109 full-page pharmaceutical advertisements
in ten leading medical journals in 1990 found that 44 per cent
contained information that could induce doctors to prescribe durgs
inappropriately. The acting director of the Food and Drug Administration's
Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications
found that about half violated FDA guidelines and 57 per cent had little or
no educational value. Drug companies spent $351 million on advertising
in medical journals in 1991. Wilkes (1992); New York Times A1 (June 1,
1992); Los Angeles Times A3 (July 31, 1992) (re-analysis by Public
Citizen Health Research Group).
12 New York Times 7 (December 31, 1990).
13 Matthiessen (1983). The book was reissued nine years later with an
afterword describing the litigation. Matthiessen (1991).
14 Guardian 23 (November 7, 1991); New York Times Book Review 10
(April 12, 1992). See generally Gillmor (1992).
15 So far the Supreme Court has struck down state laws protecting the
privacy of rape victims. The Florida Starv. B.J.F., 491 U.S. 524 (1989).
16 The distinction between commercial and non-commercial speech, central
to contemporary First Amendment jurisprudence, is hopelessly
vague. "Informercials" are now invading television—half-hour long talk
shows featuring celebrities like Cher, Dione Warwick, and Ali MacGraw
pushing products like Aquasentials, Psychic Friends Network, and
Beauty Breakthroughs and generating $750 million in sales in 1991.
Informercials were made possible when the Reagan Administration abolished
the limit of 12 commercial minutes per hour, which the FCC had
established in the 1950s. The business now has its own Informercial
Marketing Association (to avoid federal regulation) and an annual ceremony
to bestow PLAY awards (Program-Length Advertisment of the Year).
New York Times B2 (October 5, 1992). The American Society of Magazine
Editors has adopted guidelines urging the industry to distinguish
clearly between advertising and editorial content, expanding those issued
in 1982 to govern "advertorials" (special advertising sections). New York
Times C17 (October 20, 1992).
17 Federal courts have upheld laws prohibiting begging in subways and
transportation terminals. A court recently invalidated New York's ban on
street beggers, but the case is on appeal. New York Times A14 (October
2, 1992).
Even non-commercial enterprises can be compelled to speak. Under
the 1972 Drug Abatement Act a court ordered a man found with less than
an ounce of marijuana to post a sign that his house was under court order
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