Don’t let prosecutors define journalism
Federal prosecutors are claiming a startling new power: the ability to decide what is or isn’t “legitimate” journalism.
Police must protect press covering RNC
As journalists arrive at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum to cover the 2024 Republican National Convention (RNC), we can expect the public to take to the streets to protest everything from Donald Trump’s nomination to the ongoing war in Gaza and the killing of Dvontaye Mitchell.
Platform cases uphold press precedent
With all eyes on the Supreme Court’s disturbing opinion on presidential immunity, you may have missed that the court also issued an important First Amendment decision this week about social media content moderation.
Assange freed, press freedom imperiled
Julian Assange has finally been freed after reaching a surprising deal with U.S. authorities to plead guilty to violating the Espionage Act. The plea deal avoids the worst outcome of a court precedent that could be used against journalists, but it still threatens press freedom.
States keep public in dark
A full-fledged assault on transparency is underway in the states. Recent changes to public records laws in New Jersey, Louisiana, and Utah are making it harder for journalists and the public to find out what government officials are up to.
Federal anti-SLAPP law needed ASAP
Recent baseless lawsuits against liberal and conservative outlets show the need for a federal law counteracting strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs.
Sen. Durbin, advance the PRESS Act
Sen. Dick Durbin has a rare chance to strengthen freedom of the press right now by advancing the bipartisan PRESS Act, a bill to protect journalist-source confidentiality at the federal level. But he needs to act quickly. This week, Freedom of the Press Foundation led a coalition of 123 civil liberties and journalism organizations and individual law professors and media lawyers in a letter to Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, and ranking member Sen. Lindsey Graham, urging them to schedule a markup of the PRESS Act right away.
Assange decision: A wake-up call for US
On Monday, the High Court in London granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leave to appeal his extradition to the United States. The court’s decision is a welcome one. But as Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) wrote in The Guardian, it's "painfully ironic" that a U.K. court is defending the First Amendment against U.S. overreach. The ruling should be a “wake-up call” for President Joe Biden
California police violate press rights
California police are violating state law “right and left” during the protests and police raids on campus encampments. That’s according to University of California, Irvine, School of Law professor Susan Seager. We interviewed her in the wake of arrests of two California journalists in recent weeks, among other press freedom violations. Suppression of the press isn’t supposed to happen anywhere in America, but especially not in California, where it’s explicitly against the law for police to intentionally interfere with journalists covering a demonstration.
‘A national embarrassment’
The flood of press freedom violations against journalists covering protests opposing the Israel-Gaza war is a national embarrassment. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented dozens of abuses connected to protests and counterprotests, and the numbers will likely grow. These recent incidents confirm what past data in the Tracker has demonstrated: protests are an especially dangerous place for journalists.
