Victims of newsroom raids tell their stories
Newsroom raids are often associated with a bygone era, but there have been at least two in the U.S. this year: the police raid of the Marion County Record and publisher Eric Meyer’s home in Kansas and the FBI raid of the home newsroom of journalist Tim Burke in Florida.
This week FPF hosted a conversation with Meyer and Burke. Watch the recording to hear them discuss the impact of the raids on their reporting, why some press freedom violations get national attention and others don’t, and how law enforcement officials are using computer crime laws to go after journalists.
The GOP’s press freedom problem is bigger than Trump
There’s been plenty of concern expressed in recent weeks about Donald Trump’s threats to “come after” the press in a potential second term. We certainly share those concerns.
But the Republican party is not waiting for Trump’s return to start weaponizing the law against journalism. For example, 14 state attorneys general and 15 members of Congress are calling for news outlets to be investigated for “material support” of terrorism by working with Palestinian freelance photojournalists. The attorneys general are arguably even threatening criminal charges against the outlets for criticizing Israel. It all arises from a November report based on evidence-free speculation — and that’s according to its own authors.
Those are only a couple of the recent threats by Republican politicians to investigate, prosecute, defund, or otherwise censor journalists they don’t like. Read more here.
Politicians continue to retaliate against the press using public notices
We wrote in September about the alarming trend of government officials using contracts to print official notices — an important source of revenue for many news outlets — as a carrot or stick to control news coverage. Several more disturbing examples have since come to light.
Read more here about this problem and what Congress and local lawmakers should do about it. Because public notices are an important source of revenue for local newspapers serving small communities, one important response would be shoring up funding for local news, including by passing the Community News and Small Business Support Act.
Florida lawmaker renews attack on the free press
Earlier this year Florida lawmaker Alex Andrade, backed by governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis, introduced an awful bill to rewrite defamation law to help the wealthy and powerful weaponize the court system against their critics. Among many other problematic provisions, the bill made it easier to sue journalists who rely on anonymous sources – often whistleblowers who come forward at great personal risk.
That bill failed after pushback from press freedom advocates and media outlets, including conservative ones. But Andrade is back with a new, scaled-back version of the bill. It omits some of the worst proposals from the prior one, but this time anonymous sourcing is front and center. Read more here about the new bill and why, despite Andrade’s concessions, it remains dangerous to let censorious legislators get a foot in the door.
What we’re reading
63 journalists killed in as many days: Silence from newsrooms is deafening. We often write about journalists’ unfortunate reluctance to speak out when their rights are violated. The need couldn’t be more urgent than when journalists are being killed at an alarming rate in the Israel-Gaza war and even being intentionally targeted, according to several investigations.
RFE/RL's Kurmasheva Faces New Russian Charge, To Remain In Custody. RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, already in Russian custody on a sham charge of violating Russia’s “foreign agents” law, now faces up to 10 more years in prison for writing critically about the war in Ukraine. Prosecuting an American journalist for her reporting is a significant escalation by Russia. The Biden administration should do everything it can to win Kurmasheva’s freedom.
The troubled history of the Espionage Act. “There’s been plenty of discussion about whether [Julian] Assange is really a journalist, but the Espionage Act doesn’t care either way—there is no journalist-exception clause,” writes Amy Davidson Sorkin, in the New Yorker. We couldn’t agree more.
The US government should tell the public what it knows about UFOs. “It doesn’t matter the topic, there always seems to be a group of lawmakers who will stop at nothing to thwart government transparency – even when it’s a subject that could not be more bipartisan or in an obvious need for sunlight,” our executive director, Trevor Timm, writes in the Guardian.
Filmmaker arrested at ‘Cop City’ protest, sues Atlanta and police. Documentary filmmaker Lev Omelchenko sued the City of Atlanta and police officers this September, two years after his 2021 arrest while covering a protest over a public safety training center for the Atlanta Police Department commonly known as Cop City. Journalist arrests are one of several press freedom concerns arising from the Cop City protest movement.
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