Dear Friend of Press Freedom,
Here are some of the most important stories we’re following from the U.S. and around the world. If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please forward it to friends and family. If someone has forwarded you this newsletter, please subscribe here.
Redesigned for action: Meet our new website
This week, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) unveiled a new website that reflects our commitment to action-based advocacy for press freedom. FPF’s website was last relaunched in December 2016, just after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. Needless to say, a lot has happened since then.
Our new design puts front and center our key advocacy issues, like the PRESS Act, government secrecy, and arrests of journalists. On this foundation, we will soon build new tools for you to reach out to decision-makers who can help us protect the press, whether those decision-makers are in Congress, a state legislature, or a corporate boardroom.
The new design also gives more visibility to our other flagship programs: our technology work (including SecureDrop, an open source whistleblower submission platform), the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, and our work to provide digital security education to journalists. Read more about the redesign here and please let us know if you spot any bugs or have any feedback. We’re excited for you to explore the new site.
Protect end-to-end encryption
Monday was Global Encryption Day, and we took the opportunity to urge policymakers to preserve and strengthen end-to-end communications so journalists and everyone else can communicate securely.
FPF Senior Advisor Caitlin Vogus wrote for Tech Policy Press about why lawmakers who claim to be concerned about Chinese cyberattacks need to cut out the sideshows — like banning TikTok — and focus on real digital security issues like encryption.
We also hosted a conversation, via X Space, with Julia Angwin, founder of The Markup and Proof, and New York Times contributing opinion writer; Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, a senior writer at TechCrunch; and Harlo Holmes, FPF’s chief information security officer and director of digital security. You can listen here, or here if you don’t use X (note that the transcript is AI-generated and imperfect).
Not publishing newsworthy leaks isn’t integrity. It’s timidity
Major media publishers are refusing to publish leaked U.S. intelligence documents about Israel’s plans to strike Iran. They’ll report on them as they see fit, but they won’t let us see the source material. Some outlets are framing it as if they’re taking some kind of courageous stand by withholding newsworthy records from the public.
But why? How did mainstream news outlets go from publishing the Pentagon Papers to helping the national security state clean up its messes during a brutal war?
We wrote about how these decisions likely have more to do with fear of legal repercussions than journalistic ethics. The media was forced into risk aversion by the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing government secrets, which ended in a guilty plea earlier this year. Now it’s repackaging timidity as integrity. Read more here.
Chicago police obstruct journalism
The U.S. Department of Justice issued new guidance on Oct. 4, cautioning against dispersing or arresting journalists covering protests. It took the Chicago Police Department less than a week to violate it. On Oct. 10, officers reportedly threatened to arrest journalists covering an anti-war protest because they deemed it a “police activity” area.
We wrote a letter to the editor of the Chicago Sun-Times about these and other abuses by the department at the Democratic National Convention in August and since. We explained that officers in Chicago appear to feel empowered to harass journalists after facing no repercussions for their conduct at the DNC, which included threatening to revoke journalists’ press passes for not complying with illegal dispersal orders and even reportedly ripping credentials off reporters’ necks.
Speaking of, putting police in charge of press credentials is like letting the fox guard the proverbial hen house. Read the letter here (it’s the second one down).
Ending abusive equipment seizures
Earlier this month, we wrote about Justin Pulliam, a Texas citizen journalist whom law enforcement is trying to extort into signing a liability waiver in exchange for returning his own equipment. The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office seized the gear when officers arrested him for filming a mental health check.
Unfortunately, Pulliam isn’t the only journalist who’s had his equipment seized and held for an unjustifiably long time by law enforcement. (Though his is the only case we’re aware of in which they have been so explicit that they’re holding equipment hostage.)
With the help of the Institute for Justice, Pulliam filed a lawsuit over his arrest and a separate incident in which the sheriff’s department excluded him from a news conference. We spoke with Christie Hebert, an attorney at the Institute for Justice and expert on property rights and freedom of speech. Read the interview here.
Momentum for PRESS Act continues
Last week, we told you about The New York Times editorial board’s endorsement of the PRESS Act — the federal “shield” bill to protect journalist-source confidentiality from government surveillance.
The bill has continued to pick up momentum since then. Catherine Herridge, the veteran investigative journalist who has reported for everyone from CBS News to Fox News, went on Dan Abrams’ show on NewsNation to explain that “smaller newsrooms, independent journalists cannot withstand the kind of financial and legal pressure that I have been facing for over two years.” Herridge is appealing a ruling that she is in contempt of court for not burning a source.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal, too, declared on its editorial page that "Congress has fiddled for long enough on this important legislation. The time to act is now." And our executive director, Trevor Timm, recorded a video in support of the act for a new advocacy campaign from the Society of Professional Journalists. Read more here and use this form to tell your senators to support the act.
What we’re reading
Press freedom groups urge Biden to demand Israel allow media access in Gaza (HuffPost). We joined 18 partner organizations supporting a call from members of the U.S. Congress, led by Rep. Jim McGovern, for the Biden-Harris administration to urge Israel to allow independent access to Gaza for U.S. and international journalists.
A new normal (Columbia Journalism Review). “If Donald Trump returns to the White House, the Espionage Act offers a clear path for him to stifle press freedom.” And the current administration was fully aware of that and nonetheless forced Julian Assange to plead guilty under the act.
Journalists under fire: U.S. media report daily threats, harassment and attacks at home (International Women’s Media Foundation). One in four journalists faced sexual harassment on the job, and one in three experienced digital harassment, according to IWMF's latest report. A shocking 36% of journalists also reported threats of physical violence.
DeSantis' attorney said he quit after Florida threatened TV stations for airing pro-choice political ad (WFTS-TV). It’s truly bizarre that Gov. Ron DeSantis would risk senior staff resignations to send out blatantly unconstitutional threats to news outlets. As a judge told DeSantis in slapping down his silly stunt, “it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”
Come see us in Washington, D.C., or London
The Double Exposure Festival & Symposium, Nov. 7-10 in Washington, D.C., will have panels, workshops, and master classes focused on investigative storytelling. Don’t miss our Director of Advocacy Seth Stern, who will discuss dangerous government efforts to limit who is a journalist — such as by excluding documentary filmmakers. Purchase your tickets or passes here.
Or come see us in London, where we’re co-hosting Source! the London Logan Symposium with The Centre for Investigative Journalism Nov. 14-15. Hear from journalists from all over the world about press freedom issues and the challenges they face in protecting themselves and their sources. Register to attend here.
