A new lawsuit filed this week goes further than others that have targeted the arrests of foreign students. New York Times reporter Zach Montague reported that the suit, filed Wednesday by lawyers for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, takes aim at the key legal foundations that the Trump administration has relied on to arrest and attempt to deport foreign students over their criticism of the Israeli government.
The lawyers represent The Stanford Daily, the independent student-run newspaper at Stanford University, and argue that several of its staff members have been forced to self-censor or quit the paper out of fear that the government could retaliate for what it publishes.
“The new suit focuses on a section of immigration law that allows the secretary of state to determine that a noncitizen poses a threat to the country’s foreign policy and can be removed from the country for that reason,” Montague wrote. “It argues that it is unconstitutional to invoke the provisions for speech and other activities protected by the First Amendment.”
In a news release about the suit, FIRE attorney Conor Fitzpatrick stated that, in the United States, no one should fear a midnight knock on the door for voicing the wrong opinion. “Free speech isn’t a privilege the government hands out,” Fitzpatrick said. “Under our Constitution it is the inalienable right of every man, woman, and child.”
Greta Reich, editor-in-chief of The Stanford Daily, said in a statement that there’s “real fear” on the Stanford campus and it reaches into the student newsroom. “I’ve had reporters turn down assignments, request the removal of some of their articles, and even quit the paper because they fear deportation for being associated with speaking on political topics, even in a journalistic capacity,” Reich said. “The Daily is losing the voices of a significant portion of our student population.”
According to FIRE, plaintiffs in the group’s lawsuit represent the student newspaper and two legal noncitizens with no criminal record who, according to FIRE, “engaged in pro-Palestinian speech and now fear deportation and visa revocation because of their expression.”
According to The Hill, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a statement called the lawsuit “baseless” and “political.”
Poynter reached out to the White House Wednesday afternoon for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.
By Amaris Castillo
The Washington Post’s ‘third newsroom’ is no longer a newsroom. What is it?
You know those construction site sidewalk signs – “Pardon our dust, but build we must?” The Washington Post’s big hope for a new venture has just passed the one-year mark since its July 2024 announcement. Peek through the little window, though, and there is still not much to see.
Two developments have crystallized what is most problematic about the project. Fact-checker Glenn Kessler in a farewell Substack post Tuesday voiced even more directly than earlier reports a huge newsroom concern. Is the initiative a good idea or a bad idea? Hard to say when it remains so murky what CEO/Publisher Will Lewis has in mind. The gestation time seems in itself, to be a big sign of trouble (as my colleague Angela Fu reported in Wednesday’s Poynter Report).
Two weeks ago the Post announced a few more details and a pronounced change in direction for WP Ventures, so renamed last December. The former third newsroom will be physically moved from the main newsroom. Krissah Thompson, a veteran editor put in charge then, has taken a buyout. WP Ventures will now be run by a general manager (Samantha Henig) reporting to Chief of Strategy Suzi Watford. Both are business side product execs, hired within the last year and a half.
Henig and the departing Thompson wrote in a memo to staff: "Going forward, we will focus entirely on building personality-driven content and franchises around personalities in topic areas that are of interest to our target audience of Confident Strivers (a market segmentation term), and with strong commercial opportunities. This could include audio, video, newsletters, and events. We will responsibly embrace AI to tell and promote stories in new ways and at scale on new platforms." Henig and Thompson wrote.
Seeming to address the pokiness of the project, they also said that WP Ventures "was always intended for continuous evolution and has always been experimental." The big reboot is necessary, they also wrote, because “the industry has shifted.”
Influencer personalities are not my idea of cutting-edge news reinvention, but I do get that the Post could be overreliant on older journalists serving an older audience and needs to replenish with a younger cohort.
If you accept my construction zone analogy there’s some poignancy to the build-we-must part. The Post must find new tricks if it is to right the ship as a business and bridge management’s painful confidence gap with employees. Something successful may yet emerge from the foundation just put in place. Right now, though, it doesn’t look to be much more than a vague embrace of the latest bright and shiny media objects.
By Rick Edmonds
A third of Wyoming’s counties lose a newspaper in an instant
The Jackson Hole News & Guide reported that the Pinedale Roundup, a 120-year-old newspaper, and several others owned by News Media Corporation announced they were shutting down immediately Wednesday.
The papers served eight counties, “representing 35% of the state's counties losing one or more newspaper publications from a single owner,” according to the News & Guide.
“This paper has been the heartbeat of the community for 120 years — and now that heartbeat has stopped,” said former managing editor Cali O’Hare. “I think this makes it even harder because I’m aware of the damage this will do. People rely on us for reliable information.”
In a letter to employees, the ownership blamed the closure on “financial challenges, revenue losses, increased expenses, a ‘significant economic downturn impacting our industry,’ “ and the failed sale of the company. O’Hare contended the Roundup property was in solid financial shape.
By Jennifer Orsi
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