Instructor Resource
Trager, The Law of Journalism and Mass Communication 6e
CQ Press, 2018
Chapter 7: Gathering Information
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. Compared to members of the public, how much access to documents, records, and
news event sites do journalists have?
a. more
b. less
c. the same
d. it depends on the state
2. “Ride–alongs” have been a commonly used practice in news coverage of law
enforcement and other emergency personnel. Which of the following statements about
this practice best describes where the law now stands on these?
a. As long as a journalist is accompanying law enforcement authorities, the journalist
has access to any place where there is a public interest in what is happening.
b. By calling for emergency medical assistance, a home dweller has given implied
consent to the news media to report on what is happening inside the dwelling.
c. As long as a journalist obtains permission from a law enforcement agent, the
journalist may enter private property legally.
d. Merely accompanying emergency personnel does not grant the consent necessary;
journalists who make that assumption are susceptible to an intrusion lawsuit.
3. What has the U.S. Supreme Court said about ride-alongs in its ruling in Wilson v.
Layne?
a. Police have absolute authority to determine who accompanies them on their official
duties.
b. Occupants and/or owners control access to private property and must grant
permission to anyone not present to perform official duties.
c. Ride-alongs are always illegal.
d. Individuals clearly identified as nonofficials may participate in official actions on
private property.
4. A photographer who will not leave subjects alone is most vulnerable to what lawsuit?
a. fraud
b. misrepresentation
c. harassment
d. trespass
5. The line of cases exemplified by Food Lion v. Capital Cities/ABC indicates that
______.
a. libel remains the area of law that most concerns media defendants
b. plaintiffs are suing media defendants for newsgathering techniques more often than
they did in years past
c. media defendants need not be concerned about using fraudulent newsgathering
techniques
d. juries tend to favor the news media and their First Amendment rights over plaintiffs’
concerns about newsgathering techniques
6. When it comes to recording face-to-face conversations, the majority of U.S. states
are ______.
a. “all–party” states
b. “no–party” states
c. “one–party” states
d. “several–party” states
7. When it comes to recording interstate telephone conversations, what law or
regulation applies?
a. FCC regulations
b. regulations of the state in which the person making the call resides
c. regulations of the state in which the person receiving the call resides
d. there is no clear requirement
8. If a newspaper reporter legally records a telephone interview, ______.
a. the reporter may use information from the interview in a story only with the
interviewee’s consent
b. the reporter may use information from the interview in a story without the
interviewee’s consent
c. whether the reporter may use information from the story depends on federal law
d. whether the reporter may use information from the story depends on the law in the
state where the newspaper is located
9. Which of the following is not one of the required options stipulated by the FCC for
recording interstate phone calls?
a. submitting a signed “Consent to Record” form to the FCC
b. notifying all parties at the beginning of a call that it will be recorded
c. obtaining all parties’ consent to recording
d. using a regularly repeating “beep” tone so all parties will be aware the call is being
recorded
10. In situations where an illegally obtained recording falls into a journalist’s hands (as
in Bartnicki v. Vopper), what is true?
a. The journalist may not legally broadcast the recording under any circumstances.
b. The journalist may legally broadcast the recording as long as its origin is determined
first.
c. Particularly when it involves a matter of public concern, the unknown origin does not
remove the First Amendment right to broadcast the recording.
d. The authenticity of the recording must be determined before the recording can be
broadcast.
11. How long does a federal agency have to respond to a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request?
a. 10 working days
b. 20 working days
Instructor Resource
Trager, The Law of Journalism and Mass Communication 6e
CQ Press, 2018
c. 30 working days
d. 365 days
12. The U.S. Constitution ______.
a. provides an absolute right to gather information
b. prevents the application of general laws that would limit information gathering
c. creates no special right of access beyond that generally available to the public
d. has no bearing on access to information
13. Who may use the FOIA to request federal government records?
a. journalists
b. any employee of a news-gathering organization
c. any U.S. citizen
d. anyone
14. The Freedom of Information Act permits access to records held by federal ______.
a. agencies
b. courts
c. institutions
d. employees
15. Which of the following statements about the federal FOIA is true?
a. Its exemptions are supposed to be construed narrowly.
b. It is the model for many states’ open records laws.
c. Its exemptions are mandatory, rather than permissive or discretionary.
d. The precise interpretation of the exemptions is clearly stated in the law.
16. Of the following, which one is most directly related to regulating access to student
records?
a. FOIA
b. FERPA
c. Privacy Act
d. HIPAA
17. Of the following, which one is most directly related to regulating access to medical
records?
a. FOIA
b. FERPA
c. Privacy Act
d. HIPAA
18. Newsgathering is protected primarily by ______.
a. the First Amendment
b. the U.S. and state constitutions
c. federal and state statutes
d. common law decisions
19. The Supreme Court long has viewed newsgathering as foundational to freedom of
the press and has ruled that ______.
a. the First Amendment protects newsgathering except when journalists intentionally
violate the law
b. the First Amendment provides journalists with special rights of access to both public
and private sites of newsworthy events
c. neither the First Amendment protects newsgathering except when journalists
intentionally violate the law or the First Amendment provides journalists with special
rights of access to both public and private sites of newsworthy events
d. the First Amendment protects newsgathering except when journalists intentionally
violate the law, as well as the First Amendment provides journalists with special rights of
access to both public and private sites of newsworthy events
20. The government in the Sunshine Law and the Federal Advisory Committee Act
establishes ______.
a. the right of public access to meetings of federal governing and advisory bodies
b. the limits to access to government meetings and records
c. the right of public access to both state and federal government meetings
d. the right to record in public places
21. General laws that incidentally limit news media’s ability to gather information are
______.
a. presumptively unconstitutional
b. routinely ignored without punishment
c. overturned by the supremacy clause
d. generally constitutional unless they unreasonably target the press
22. The right of journalists to be on-location at the site of news events is ______.
a. clearly established by Supreme Court decisions
b. clearly established by the federal Freedom of Access law
c. not clearly established
d. clearly established by common law and historic practice
23. The authority of public safety officials to control the behavior of people, including
journalists, on public property is ______.
a. established by clear federal law
b. unlimited
c. not unlimited but extensive
d. absolutely overridden by the First Amendment
24. The right of citizens to take photographs in public places, including locations of
police activity, is ______.
a. established by clear federal law
b. unlimited
c. absolutely overridden by the authority of police
d. protected to some degree by the First Amendment
25. In cases involving the use of drones to photograph private property, courts around
the world have ______.
a. absolutely protected the freedom to photograph
b. generally punished this uninvited photography without establishing clear rules or tests
c. said they had insufficient facts about the technology to render decisions
d. protected the unlimited right of private property owners to be free of uninvited
photographs
26. Journalists’ promises of confidentiality are ______.
a. prohibited by federal law
b. legally enforceable contracts if they are relied upon and their breach causes harm
c. understood by all parties to be nonbinding
d. ethical constraints but not legally binding
27. Ag-gag laws are ______.
a. state laws that limit access to agricultural and livestock facilities
b. state laws that prevent publication of factual information about agricultural and
livestock facilities
c. federal statutes that prevent GMO labeling of food products
d. none of these
28. The right of access in the United States is ______.
Instructor Resource
Trager, The Law of Journalism and Mass Communication 6e
CQ Press, 2018
a. recognized by courts as central to the rights of free speech and free press firmly
protected by the First Amendment
b. determined by one federal law that clarifies both the right and its limits
c. complicated in ways that present challenges for private citizens and working
journalists
d. greatest for working journalists, who are protected by the First Amendment’s right to
gather news
29. Tortious newsgathering is a newsgathering pitfall ______.
a. common to every working journalist who conducts interviews with uncooperative
sources
b. and crime subject to a minimum penalty of 5 years in jail
c. only when it involves physical trespass
d. of overly aggressive newsgathering using wrongful and unlawful reporting techniques
30. The final ruling in the case of Food Lion v. Capital Cities Inc. ______.
a. serves to caution journalists about the use of hidden cameras
b. required the news organization to pay $5.5 million in punitive damages
c. demonstrates that news organizations do not lose lawsuits unless their stories are
untrue
d. illustrates that courts care more about the outcome of newsgathering than the
process
31. Misrepresentation is both an ethical and a legal problem that may arise only when
reporters hide ______.
a. the fact that they work for a media outlet
b. the nature of the story they are developing
c. recording devices
d. all of these
32. Reporting social media content ______.
a. is always beneficial
b. is always an invasion of privacy
c. is always legal if you cite the source
d. can be perilous
33. Laws governing the use of cameras and recording devices exist ______.
a. only at the federal level
b. only through interpretation of the First Amendment
c. primarily at the state level
d. none of these
1. The U.S. Supreme Court has clearly stated that there is First Amendment protection
for newsgathering.
2. The wording of the Freedom of Information Act allows federal agencies significant
flexibility in determining whether a record should be disclosed.
3. When invited by government officials to accompany them, journalists may enter
private property without the content of the property owner or resident.
4. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling suggests that a journalist may legally broadcast an
anonymously provided recording of a conversation even if the recording was obtained
illegally.
Instructor Resource
Trager, The Law of Journalism and Mass Communication 6e
CQ Press, 2018
6. As irritating as paparazzi can be, courts have consistently ruled their actions are
simply part of the newsgathering process and violate no laws.
7. By definition, the use of hidden cameras as a newsgathering technique is intrusive
and therefore always illegal.
8. Plaintiffs’ claims of fraud or misrepresentation are unlikely to succeed when brought
against individuals clearly identifying themselves as journalists.
a. True
b. False
9. The Food Lion case revolved around undercover journalists investigating various
practices in grocery stores.
10. The law that governs the recording of conversations is uniform nationwide.
11. The Freedom of Information Act guarantees access to federal court documents.
12. The U.S. Supreme Court has found no general First Amendment protection for
newsgathering.
13. The Freedom of Information Act provides for the release of personal information at
agency discretion even if the Privacy Act says the information cannot be released.
14. Sunshine laws guarantee access to state records.
15. The exemptions to the Freedom of Information prohibit any government agency
from releasing any of the covered records.
16. The “housekeeping” exemption to the Freedom of Information Act permits federal
agencies to withhold information about cleaning products.
17. The Supreme Court has held that the disclosure of public records that name private
individuals “is not what the framers of FOIA had in mind.”
18. State open-records laws uniformly cover access to both physical and digital records.
19. The Privacy Act’s limits on federal disclosure of private information prevail when it
conflicts with the disclosure requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.
20. The First Amendment absolutely and completely protects the right of a citizen to
nondisruptively record police activity.
1. What does it mean to say the First Amendment can be viewed as either “shield” or
“sword”?
2. Discuss the significance and impact of the Food Lion, Inc. v. Capital Cities/ABC, Inc.
case.
3. Explain what is meant when FOIA exemptions are described as discretionary, not
mandatory.
4. Courts have not settled on a single, clear rationale or test to determine journalists’
(and the public’s) right of access to quasi-public spaces—government land, military
sites, polling places, and the like. In recent years, however, several circuit courts of
appeal have relied on a two-prong test the Supreme Court developed to decide cases
involving access to courtrooms. Explain the test and the outcomes it has produced to
discuss whether the courts appear to be increasing or decreasing the right of public
access to these quasi-public spaces.
5. Today’s media rely heavily on recording as a means of newsgathering and reporting
overtly or covertly by reporters and others. Use a specific situation and type of recording
to discuss three types of laws that may affect the rights of news media to record and
distribute such recordings.