On the Record

By: Danny Jacobs

I’ve never been to Raleigh-Durham International Airport, but it’s near Duke, so naturally I must root against it under any circumstances. (Go Terps!)

I was doubly delighted, then, upon learning that the airport had conceded defeat in a six-year battle with a local newspaper, The News & Observer, over a ban on vending boxes at the airport. The airport, known as RDU, had argued the news racks “would undermine airport security and aesthetics, impede passenger flow through the terminals, and reduce airport income.”

The case went up and down the federal court system until Thursday, when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied RDU’s request for a rehearing en banc. The airport says it will place news racks at baggage claim and ticket areas of terminals, although The News & Observer and other papers want them in the terminals’ concourses.

That dispute is for another day; what I want to highlight is the “withering rebuke” of RDU written by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III. Wilkinson, a former newspaper editorial page editor, who attacked RDU’s arguments and offered a spirited defense of the First Amendment. You can read the entire concurring opinion here.

His underlying point is “it is blackletter law that free speech is not to be wholly subordinated to administrative convenience.” And he concludes with the following gem:

“An informed citizenry is at the heart of this democracy, and narrowing the arteries of information in the manner sought by the Authority will only serve to impair our country’s coronary health.”