Dear Friend of Press Freedom:
With journalists getting subpoenaed, sued, and spied on, it’s time for press freedom groups to become more aggressive about pushing for legislation to protect them. Plus, we’re taking some tips from Wile E. Coyote and asking courts to drop a (legal) anvil on President Donald Trump’s Truth Social grift and (legally) blow up a publishing gag in New Jersey.
How to win the fight for journalists’ rights
How can press freedom groups fight successfully on behalf of journalists after years of Trump, as well as prior presidents, exploiting gaps in their legal protections that Congress hasn’t closed? Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Executive Director Trevor Timm ran down the comprehensive and aggressive lobbying strategy vital to regaining legal ground for the press, in an article for the Knight First Amendment Institute.
Stop the Truth Social grift
We’re suing Trump and his staff for selling early access to his Truth Social posts for up to $100,000 a month, and this week we asked the court for an order to halt the scheme immediately. Our motion, filed with The Intercept, seeks to block the president from posting on Truth Social so long as he continues his “corrupt assault on the Constitution that harms members of the press and public who don’t line the president’s pockets,” as FPF Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern put it.
DHS abuses administrative summonses to snoop on reporters
When judges rejected the Trump administration’s efforts to surveil numerous journalists present at the Minnesota protest that led to Don Lemon and Georgia Fort’s unlawful indictments, officials attempted to circumvent the court and the constitution by misusing administrative subpoenas. It’s “concerning that the government sought subscriber information for Lemon and Fort because there’s no reason it would need this information” for the charges brought against them, FPF Senior Adviser Caitlin Vogus told The Guardian. “It’s not a crime to post a YouTube video.”
We ‘hope’ the Obama library will ‘change’ its First Amendment exhibit
Former President Barack Obama taught constitutional law students for over a decade. So why does the First Amendment exhibit at the Obama Presidential Center get the law wrong? As FPF’s Stern wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times, the exhibit’s mistakes teach kids that free speech is easily curtailed — another gift to the Trump administration and future censors, after Obama’s attacks on leaks and undermining of journalist-source confidentiality helped pave the way for Trump’s war on leakers and journalists. That’s far more problematic than any tan suit.
Journalists face a new McCarthyism
The Trump administration’s crackdown on dissent has had devastating consequences for the press, especially independent outlets without the institutional support to fight back. Stern joined Chip Gibbons of Defending Rights & Dissent, attorney Jenin Younes, and Kevin Gosztola of The Dissenter for an online panel last week examining the administration’s recent methods of targeting reporters in the context of its broader campaign to suppress facts it doesn’t like.
Lift the gag on New Brunswick Today
New Jersey newspaper New Brunswick Today was illegally gagged by a judge’s order to remove truthful reporting about a school security incident from the internet. We joined an amicus brief led by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey in support of the outlet’s appeal, calling out the unconstitutional prior restraint.
What we’re reading
Federal court rules the statutes the Trump admin used in its speech-based deportation scheme are unconstitutional
In a vitally important case brought by student newspaper The Stanford Daily and its attorneys at FIRE, a federal court ruled that the provisions Secretary of State Marco Rubio relies on to deport journalists and others noncitizens for their speech violate the First Amendment.
Trump’s press attacks reveal a gender gap
FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper spoke to Axios about Trump’s attacks on female reporters, most recently Kristen Welker. “You have to have a willingness to engage with reporters who disagree with you ... in particular with outlets that may be skeptical of your policies.”
Watchdog, other selected media denied access to cover G20 finance summit
Not only were reporters from major national outlets inexplicably denied access to the G20 summit, so were local news outlets from the host city of Asheville, North Carolina, a venue supposedly selected to showcase the region’s recovery from Tropical Storm Helene.
Press freedom advocates alarmed by $300,000 defamation verdict against Louisiana newspaper
Absent the “actual malice” standard, a fear of liability would make publishers “more timid and suppress critical reporting of wealthy, powerful or otherwise newsworthy people,” FPF’s Stern told The Guardian. It won’t improve journalism to impose “significant monetary damages whenever the inevitable mistakes occur,” he added.
Why ABC self-censored
Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr “directs his threats to the market at large precisely because intimidating any one licensee is not sufficient to accomplish his objectives,” Stern told the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism’s Joel Simon.
Deadline extended! Are you a journalist who uses FOIA or other public records laws in your reporting? You could win $25K with our new journalism award, the Penlight Prize. Apply by September 15.
Apply here
