According to the First Amendment Center’s new survey, freedom of speech is Americans’ favorite First Amendment right.
Press freedom, however, came in dead last.
Last Friday, the Justice Department released revised guidelines governing the Department’s interactions with the press. Attorney General Eric Holder conducted the review in response to the news that the DoJ had obtained the phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors and the emails of a Fox News reporter.
In recent years the news coverage on WWOR-TV in New Jersey got so bad that local residents started a campaign to have the Federal Communications Commission take away the station’s broadcast license. They don’t have to worry anymore because the station just canceled its remaining newscast.
Just days after announcing a major acquisition of 19 television stations, the Tribune Company has said it will spin off eight of its newspapers into a new entity called the Tribune Publishing Company.
With news today that the Tribune Company has agreed to acquire 19 television stations from Local TV Holdings LLC, making it one of the largest TV station owners in the nation, we are seeing a dramatic escalation of media consolidation.
Earlier this month, federal prosecutors filed a formal criminal complaint against Edward Snowden, charging him with three felonies for leaking information about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs to Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian and Barton Gellman at the Washington Post. Two of those charges were filed under the 1917 Espionage Act.
In June, before the National Security Agency surveillance story broke, everyone was talking about the Justice Department’s secret collection of phone records from Associated Press journalists and editors — and the Department’s classification of one Fox News journalist as an accomplice in a leak that he had reported on.
Our friends at The Other 98% have launched a crowdfunding campaign with the remarkable goal of outbidding some of America’s biggest corporate giants to buy the eight Tribune papers that are currently on the chopping block.
On May 29th, in cities around the country, people took to the streets to tell the Tribune Company to reject a bid from the notorious Koch brothers for its eight newspapers. In a national day of action to “save our news,” rallies were held in 14 communities and activists delivered more than half a million petition signatures to the Tribune Company.
