420
Opinion of the Court
Manager has determined that publications that qualify as newspapers and therefore can be distributed by newsrack are those that are published daily and/or weekly and "primarily presen[t] coverage of, and commentary on, current events." App. 230 (emphasis added).
The absence of a categorical definition of the difference between "newspapers" and "commercial handbills" in the city's code is also a characteristic of our opinions considering the constitutionality of regulations of commercial speech. Fifty years ago, we concluded that the distribution of a commercial handbill was unprotected by the First Amendment, even though half of its content consisted of political protest. Valentine v. Chrestensen, 316 U. S. 52 (1942). A few years later, over Justice Black's dissent, we held that the "commercial feature" of door-to-door solicitation of magazine subscriptions was a sufficient reason for denying First Amendment protection to that activity. Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U. S. 622 (1951). Subsequent opinions, however, recognized that important commercial attributes of various forms of communication do not qualify their entitlement to constitutional protection. Thus, in Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U. S. 748 (1976), we explained:
"We begin with several propositions that already are settled or beyond serious dispute. It is clear, for example, that speech does not lose its First Amendment protection because money is spent to project it, as in a paid advertisement of one form or another. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 35-59 (1976); Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Relations Comm'n, 413 U. S., at 384; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S., at 266. Speech likewise is protected even though it is carried in a form that is 'sold' for profit, Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 150 (1959) (books); Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495, 501 (1952) (motion pictures); Murdock v.
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