Dear Friend of Press Freedom,
We’re glad you're here. Here are some of the issues we’ve been working on this week, from Indiana to Idaho.
Florida bill incentivizes self-censorship
Journalists and press freedom advocates were rightly appalled last month when a single judge in small-town Mississippi ordered one newspaper to remove one allegedly defamatory editorial from its website.
But now, Florida’s legislature is pushing countless news outlets across the Sunshine State to do the same thing by denying legal defenses to outlets that resist censorship demands. Read more here.
Indiana authorities must drop charges against photojournalist
Prosecutors in Lake County, Indiana, might not intend to give the Trump administration an assist by pursuing charges against photojournalist Matthew Kaplan. They may think when police officers in Gary broke up a Jan. 18 protest of the incoming administration’s immigration policies, journalists like Kaplan were required to leave too.
But they’re wrong — journalists have a constitutional right to document police conduct during protests and their aftermath. And the prosecutors’ error (assuming it was one) is a gift to President Donald Trump and his anti-press and anti-immigration agendas. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Director of Advocacy Seth Stern explained why they need to drop the case in an op-ed in the Post-Tribune.
Don’t weaken Texas anti-SLAPP law
In 2018, Dr. O.H. “Bud” Frazier sued ProPublica’s Charles Ornstein and another reporter, Mike Hixenbaugh, over an article on both Dr. Frazier’s medical breakthroughs and accusations that he violated federal research rules and skirted ethical guidelines.
To defend themselves, the journalists and their outlets turned to the Texas Citizens Participation Act, a law to discourage frivolous defamation suits. FPF Senior Advocacy Adviser Caitlin Vogus talked to Ornstein for the second in a series of Q&As with people who have firsthand experience with the TCPA and understand why proposals to weaken it are so misguided.
A deep dive on the Pentagon Papers
Lies were the foundation of U.S. policy in Vietnam. Four successive presidential administrations deceived the public, members of Congress, and those who served in the U.S. military about the costs of the war and the likelihood of success.
The decades of deception began unraveling with the historic leak of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 by our late co-founder, Daniel Ellsberg. Our Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy, Lauren Harper, compiled FPF’s thoughts and resources on the Pentagon Papers here.
What we’re reading
US journalist sues Indian government after losing his overseas citizenship (The Guardian). It’s one thing to retaliate against a pro-Palestinian activist with a green card, but even a wannabe authoritarian would never mess with a citizen just for reporting on corporate crime, … right?
Idaho joins states with anti-SLAPP laws, aimed at combatting frivolous lawsuits (Idaho Capital Sun). Good news: Idaho’s anti-SLAPP bill has been signed into law. Every state and the federal government need a strong anti-SLAPP law.
Miami Beach mayor moves to end O Cinema lease after screening of Israeli-Palestinian film (Miami Herald). If Mayor Steven Meiner thinks a theater screening a documentary he disagrees with is “not consistent with the values of our City” then those values are not consistent with the First Amendment.
Musk’s team must produce documents to comply with open records laws, judge says (The New York Times). The same billionaire who said during campaign season that the Freedom of Information Act shouldn’t be needed because all government records should be public now says his quasi-governmental “efficiency” team isn’t subject to FOIA and, if it is, it needs three years to produce records.
USAID official orders staff to destroy classified documents (Bloomberg). FPF’s Harper explained that Marco Rubio is simultaneously 1) the acting head of an agency unlawfully destroying records (U.S. Agency for International Development), 2) the head of the agency that’s supposed to be preserving USAID’s records (State Department), and 3) the acting head of the agency that’s supposed to investigate unlawful records destruction (National Archives and Records Administration). That seems like a conflict. …
Facing Trump’s threats, Columbia investigates students critical of Israel (The Associated Press). Columbia has a journalism school, a First Amendment institute, and a journalism magazine. But instead of listening to any of them before investigating an op-ed writer, administrators listened to Trump and their own cowardly hearts.
