Trample gamble / Valedictates / NP-argh

Trample gamble. TikTok has warned that a U.S. ban on its app would “trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans.”
■ A recent vote in the U.S. House of Representatives has renewed a threat to TikTok and CNN examined what may lie ahead.
■ The U.S. Senate’s plans to expand surveillance capabilities would threaten press freedom, and everyone else’s too, the Freedom of the Press Foundation contends.
■ The launch of Meta A.I. has reconfigured the information-technology landscape with potential concerns on the horizon.

■ There is a First Amendment-friendly way to clean up social media, surmised author-lawyer Steven Brill in a Politico commentary.

■ High school students in Kansas persuaded a school district to remove their files from the purview of an A.I. surveillance systems, contending it violated First Amendment rights.

See no, hear no. Manhattan courtroom proceedings for Donald Trump’s hush-money case will be conducted without cameras or recording devices, as dictated by New York state law.
■ One America News Network has settled its defamation lawsuit with the voting-technology company that it targeted with unfounded fraud claims tied to the 2020 presidential election.
■ The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed a lawsuit to move forward against a Black Lives Matter activist who organized a Louisiana protest during which a police officer was injured.
■ After recent clashes in Chicago, individual protest rights may be challenged by law enforcement at the Democratic National Convention, activist groups claim.
■ The First Amendment is an honorary winner in a public-speaking lawsuit settlement in a Detroit suburb.

Valedictates. Many schools have continued to silence valedictorians despite the likelihood that the institutions will become the center of a national controversy.
■ USC has cancelled its commencement keynote speaker, Asian filmmaker Jon Chu, just days after disallowing a Muslim student valedictorian to speak.
■ Ivy League college campus pro-Palestinian protests escalate, prompting arrests and moving classes online.

■ A new University of Michigan proposal to curtail demonstrations on campus could quell constitutionally protected protests, free-speech advocates said.
■ Ohio database death records are not open to the public, the state Supreme Court has ruled.
■ Following a two-day hearing, a Nashville judge will decide whether a school shooter’s journals are public records.

Bans expand. The banning of books in public schools surged in the first half of this school year, a new PEN America study showed.
■ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has backtracked slightly on his 2022 book-challenge law, but his state is responsible for more than 70 percent of pulled books in the country.
■ The country’s ‘‘Big Five’’ publishers have challenged an Iowa state law that bans certain books and limits the teachings on gender identity.

■ A federal judge has blocked a Florida law that barred a transgender teacher from using preferred pronouns.

NP-argh. One NPR editor’s essay over what he perceived as politically biased coverage has created turmoil at the public radio network.
■ Pushing censorship both from the left and the right is crippling free speech, said author Salman Rushdie in a ‘‘60 Minutes’’ interview. 

■ Journalist Terry Anderson, whose 1985 abduction, torturous imprisonment, and eventual release gripped the nation, has died at 76.
■ Citing First Amendment protections, the Walt Disney Co. has filed a motion to dismiss the wrongful termination lawsuit brought by actor Gina Carano.

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Divided we stand? / Finding false / Saving grace

Divided we stand? Though united in our divisions, a new poll shows that Americans still agree on most of the country’s core values, including free speech.
■ Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered Texas colleges to revise their free-speech policies in an effort to curb what he described as a “sharp rise in antisemitic speech.”
■ A Georgia superior court judge rejected Donald Trump’s First Amendment challenge in his election-interference case.

■ Trump publicly declared that it would be “a great honor” to be jailed for violating the gag order in his hush-money trial.
■ The former president’s legal claims about political speech are full of hot air, declared the author of “How to Read the Constitution -- and Why” in a commentary for The Hill.

Nun sense. A multimillion-dollar marketing blitz has engaged Sister Monica Clare and others to preach that TikTok is a force for good.
■ In an apparent show of Republican support for Elon Musk’s X, Missouri’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against progressive watchdog group Media Matters, reported The Guardian.
■ Israel’s prime minister is reportedly using a new national-security law in an attempt to shut down news network Al Jazeera in the country.
■ A federal judge dismissed a First Amendment lawsuit by a Minnesota physician and former GOP candidate for governor against the state medical board.

Finding false. Convinced that viral lies threaten democracy, a cadre of defamation lawyers are working to stem the tide of political disinformation one payout or apology at a time.
■ Despite 15 years of calls for anti-SLAPP legislation in one North Carolina county, the bills never made it out of initial committees.
■ Police have continued to arrest journalists and the Freedom of the Press Foundation continues its push to understand why.
■ A reporter’s arrest on the campus of Vanderbilt University echoed a disgraceful Civil Rights-era incident there, J. Holly McCall asserted in a Tennessee Lookout commentary.

Break the silence. Former CBS News reporters Catherine Herridge and Sharyl Attkisson, whose departures were called into question, are scheduled to speak at an April 11 House Judiciary Committee hearing on protecting journalists and their sources.
■ U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich marked a year in Russian prisons while the Biden administration reported that it continues to push for his release.

■ A college newspaper in Iowa stepped up and purchased two struggling weeklies in a commitment to slow growing news deserts in rural areas of the country.
■ The third lawsuit stemming from an August 2023 raid on a small Kansas newspaper that sparked a widespread outrage has been filed in federal court.

Saving grace. Limiting the number of meals a local church can serve to unhoused residents of Brookings, Ore., was a violation of religious-freedom rights, a federal judge ruled.
■ Opponents of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed into law by Iowa’s governor contended that it opens the door to discrimination.

■ A facial-hair ban for prison guards amounts to religious discrimination, the U.S. Justice Department has declared.
■ A fight to protect the dignity of Michelangelo’s David has raised questions about freedom of expression.

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Ban the 'ban' / Post marks / Kate restraint

Ban the ‘ban.’ U.S. senators have publicly declared they are not calling for a ban on TikTok, only a desire to disarm it.
■ If the question is ‘Can Congress ban TikTok?’ then Judge Andrew Napolitano offered an answer in a recent guest commentary.
■ Federal prosecutors are pursuing a deal to avoid a First Amendment showdown over WikiLeaks, reported Reason’s Matthew Petti.
■ Graphic warning labels on packs of cigarettes do not violate the First Amendment, a judicial panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

Under the influence. A conservative social-media influencer and fervent Donald Trump supporter was arrested for her involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
■ College students are not ardent supporters of free speech, survey data collected by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression suggests.
■ Supreme Court justices refused to intervene in the dispute over a blocked drag show on a Texas university campus.
■ The women’s basketball coach at LSU has threatened to file a defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post over an unpublished story she labeled a “hit piece.”

Post marks. The U.S. Supreme Court seemed to side with the Biden administration over efforts to combat questionable social media posts.
■ Supreme Court justices appeared receptive to the National Rifle Association’s free-speech lawsuit against a former New York state official.
■ A small-town Texas ex-council member has brought her First Amendment-related retaliation claim before the Supreme Court.

■ A federal judge in California has rejected a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s X against a hate-speech watchdog group.

Kate restraint. British tabloids took a rare, reserved approach in the news frenzy over the Princess of Wales’s health, but it did not slow the flow of wild speculation.

■ Chuck Todd of “Meet the Press” fame blasted NBC for its decision to hire former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst.

■ Gannett and McClatchy news chains announced they would cease using content by The Associated Press, a service used for decades.
■ Jon Stewart has returned to The Daily Show to push professional journalists to get Americans closer to the truth.

■ A new publisher has allowed Sports Illustrated operations to continue print and digital products.

Devil in the details? Satanic Temple representatives filed a lawsuit against Memphis-Shelby County Schools for blocking an afterschool club, labeling it a violation of the organization’s First Amendment rights.
■ Lawmakers in mostly conservative states have called for greater efforts to place chaplains in U.S. public schools.
■ Wendell Bird contends in a new book that most First Amendment freedoms received greater impetus from religiously motivated individuals than from philosophical thinkers, according to a review by Middle Tennessee State University political science professor John R. Vile.
■ The board chair at Middle Tennessee State University has pushed legislation to close official meetings for dealing with “sensitive” matters.

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Sin waggin' / Dangerous game / Walk, can't run

Sin waggin.’ Florida’s ‘Stop WOKE Act’ restricting business diversity training infringes on free-speech rights, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
■ Texas college students have asked the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency ruling to allow them to host a charity drag show on campus.
■ A Buffalo man who cursed a police officer in 2016 has continued his winding free-speech battle that has reached the upper echelons of federal courts.

■ Americans believe that free speech is heading “in the wrong direction” when it comes to expressing views, a national survey has found.

■ Nashville’s Metro Council vowed to keep fighting a free-speech lawsuit brought by a firefighter demoted over “racially inflammatory” social media posts.

Dangerous game. Tech founders Elon Musk and Sam Altman are poised for an AI legal battle where everyone loses, a Reuters commentary declared.
■ Lawmakers, with the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson, advance a bill that could make TikTok unavailable in the United States.

■ The Princess of Wales has issued an apology for editing an official photograph of her and her children after concerns were raised by news agencies. 
■ Sunshine Week is an annual reminder of the importance of keeping public records and meetings open to the public, proclaimed Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.

■ The Freedom of the Press Foundation has joined a legal brief filed in San Diego arguing that journalists must be able to cover this country’s incarcerated.

Crushing change. The challenges of top educators in teaching journalism during times of harsh economic realities plaguing news companies was examined in an NPR perspective piece.
■ With the belief that solving the country’s local-news crisis requires reinventing community journalism at the grassroots level, entrepreneurs will have to lead the way.

■ A commitment to free speech makes the United States vulnerable to disinformation campaigns, claimed MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade.

■ An Oklahoma law has teachers fearful of teaching a book that is the foundation of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” an Oscar-nominated film about the true story of white settlers who murdered members of the Osage tribe in the 1920s.

■ A Tennessee high schooler has launched a free-speech club to fight back against library book bans.

Walk, can’t run. The First Amendment does not protect Oregon lawmakers who walked out in protest and now cannot seek re-election, a judicial panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed.
■ Facing charges that he joined the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a conservative media writer has surrendered to federal authorities.
■ A union of immigration judges that regularly advocates in interviews and public forums has now been ordered to get Department of Justice approval before speaking publicly.

■ New Jersey legislation that would represent the most significant change ever to the Open Public Records Act may hinge on governor’s signature.

Swift response. Attorney Lynn Greenky in an analysis warned the college student tracking Taylor Swift’s flight information that the First Amendment protects free speech but not stalking.
■ A federal judge held veteran journalist Catherine Herridge in civil contempt for refusing to divulge a confidential source.

■ The publishing of an investigative story about Hamas’ use of sexual violence in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel has divided The New York Times newsroom.

■ The pivotal Times v. Sullivan libel case turns 60 this month and News/Media Alliance has re-examined the watershed Supreme Court ruling.

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Sturdy platforms? / Hack job / Jet fighter

Sturdy platforms? As it hears challenges to laws in Texas and Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court soon could yield a significant constitutional ruling on tech platforms’ free-speech rights.
■ In hearing two NetChoice cases this week, Supreme Court justices could turn First Amendment law on its head when dealing with social media restrictions.
■ The firing of a fifth-grade teacher for reading a book about gender identity in class was upheld by the Georgia Board of Education.
■ Activists must defend free speech that aids racial justice, suggested law professor Randall L. Kennedy in a Harvard Crimson commentary.

 

Hack job. A former journalist has been indicted on 14 federal crimes over the alleged hacking and leaking of unaired interview clips by ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

■ When does investigative journalism become hacking? The Verge sought to answer that question.
■ A CBS reporter’s dismissal has raised questions over whether it was part of company job cuts or tied to her First Amendment court battle over confidential sources.
■ The digital-media company BuzzFeed sold off a pop culture start-up for nearly half of what it paid for it in 2021 as its value continues to plunge.

Vice precedent? Hopes of attracting millions of young people to its news company have been dashed as Vice Media stops publishing online and cuts hundreds of jobs.

■ For an already struggling news industry, all signs for 2024 point to a continued free fall, contended Associated Press media writer David Bauder.
■ Read a personal letter to Nevada Independent employees from Editor and CEO Jon Ralston on his anguish over cutting staff and his refusal to give up.

■ Journalists who alleged harassment and injury by police during 2020 protests in a lawsuit were awarded a $950,000 settlement from the city of Minneapolis.

Jet fighter. Calling it an effort by rich and powerful people to silence free speech, legal representatives for the college student who tracks Taylor Swift’s private plane travel on social media have ignored the superstar’s cease-and-desist letter.
■ A “religious liberty” bill, previously viewed as discriminatory and rejected, has been re-introduced in the Georgia state Senate.
■ There is no evidence that our nation was founded as a Christian nation, but some Americans want the government to declare it as one now.

■ On the heels of President’s Day, the Free Speech Center’s constitutional scholar John R. Vile documented how U.S. presidents engaged in First Amendment issues during their time in office.

Heckler’s veto. Jewish rapper Matisyahu’s concert cancellations by venue owners reflect a continued threat to free expression, contended the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
■ A board of education in Maryland is being sued by three teachers who claim their First Amendment rights were violated when they were suspended for “supporting basic Palestinian human rights.”
■ Missouri educators who opposed a school district’s required anti-racism training took their free-speech claims to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
■ The punishment of a Black student in Texas over his hairstyle did not violate a state discrimination law, a judge has ruled.

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Disinformed / Spywarn / Putin it to him

Disinformed. Lawmakers and tech companies are scrambling to stop the AI-generated spread of false election information.
■ Not wearing a mask during a COVID emergency was not a right of free speech, an appeals court has ruled.
■ The real winner in a lawsuit between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Palestinian student groups was the First Amendment, concluded Ken Paulson, executive director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.
■ Elementary school students have decided which freedom in the First Amendment is the most important, and they tell us why too.
 
A rich Mann. A Washington, D.C., jury has awarded $1 million to climate scientist Michael Mann after a 12-year defamation lawsuit battle.
■ A city and county in Ohio have agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by NewsNation reporter Evan Lambert after his unlawful arrest at a press conference.
■ ACLU’s fight over one Tennessee town’s anti-drag ordinance ends with a $500,000 settlement.
■ An Alabama library board has banned the purchase of books with sexual or LGBTQ+ content for children 17 and younger.
■ An upcoming election could create a majority of book-ban advocates on a school board in a Tennessee county.
 
Spywarn. The Biden administration has vowed to restrict visas for foreign individuals who abuse spyware to target activists and journalists.
■ A judge’s interpretation of the New Jersey anti-SLAPP law may go a long way in preventing malicious lawsuits aimed at journalists.
■ An Arizona bill that targets “swatting” could raise a First Amendment concern, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has concluded.
 
Putin it to him. Tucker Carlson’s interview with the Russian president left the former Fox News host in silence and looking confounded, reported The Washington Post.
■ Some CNN employees have said the network’s pro-Israel news slant is tantamount to “journalistic malpractice.”
■ The National Press Club offered journalists who had lost jobs the chance to commiserate over free tacos and drinks.
■ NPR’s Linda Wertheimer penned a bittersweet goodbye as she announced her retirement after a 50-year career.
 
A Wynn loss. Casino mogul Steve Wynn had his defamation lawsuit against the Associated Press dismissed by the Nevada Supreme Court.
■ A jury verdict for a former high school coach in a defamation case was reinstated by the South Carolina Supreme Court.
■ UC Berkeley cites students’ free-speech rights in its bid to end an antisemitism lawsuit.

 
 

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Puzzling / Shielded / Money pit

Puzzling. As Donald Trump moves closer to another Republican presidential nomination, how to cover his live appearances has posed an unsolved riddle for news outlets, says Associated Press reporter David Bauder.
■ Election misinformation is spreading on X after Elon Musk dismantled the platform’s system for flagging false content, The New York Times has reported.
■ Are ballot selfies protected by the First Amendment? At the moment, there is no consensus among U.S. states.
■ Despite TikTok’s widespread popularity with Americans, government officials have worked to restrict access to it.

■ President Biden tries to balance Gaza protests and free-speech rights as his public events are disrupted by protesters.

Shielded. The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a federal shield law (PRESS Act) that would protect reporters from disclosing confidential sources or having their digital records accessed by the government.
■ Seth Stern, a Freedom of the Press Foundation director, has answered the most frequently asked questions about the PRESS Act here.
■ A Texas law that would require sexual-content ratings from booksellers who deal with school libraries has been blocked by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

■ Despite a state policy prohibiting them, banned books fill a secret shelf at a Texas school, NPR reported.
■ Georgia lawmakers have passed a bill that would define antisemitism in state law despite opponents saying it could curtail free-speech rights.

Wrong side of the street. Blocking traffic is not protected by the First Amendment even though the freedom to protest is, argued Reason associate editor Billy Binion.
■ The arrest of an Ohio public official during a board meeting for comments critical of the local sheriff was a violation of her constitutional rights, a federal judge has ruled.
■ A parent did not have a First Amendment right to record an online meeting with school officials discussing his child’s individualized education plan, a three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
■ A federal judge ruled that a Pennsylvania law making the release of information on teacher disciplinary complaints a crime is in violation of the First Amendment.

Money pit. The billionaires who said they wanted to save the news industry are losing a fortune, according to a financial analysis in The New York Times.
■ Following significant layoffs and the resignation of its top editor, the Los Angeles Times announced its first female executive editor, who is now tasked with navigating through the turbulence at the 142-year-old newspaper.
■ A clash between the Los Angeles Times owner and its former editor over an unpublished article reportedly led the latter to resign.

■ A vigil was held outside the U.S. Capitol to honor the more than 80 journalists and media workers who have been killed since the Israel-Gaza conflict began.

Boxed out. A Colorado man was cited after more than 200 local newspapers with a front-page story about an investigation into sexual assault at the home of a police chief went missing from distribution boxes.
■ Donations have helped a weekly newspaper in Oregon publish again weeks after an employee embezzled thousands of dollars and forced it to shut down.

■ Congress must help save local journalism before it is too late, urged the editor of The Seattle Times Save the Free Press Initiative.

■ An Oklahoma lawmaker has authored a bill that would require journalists to be licensed by the state and to take quarterly drug tests.

■ A federal appeals court in Maryland has upheld a law requiring gun dealers to distribute information about suicide prevention, conflict resolution, and mental health resources when selling firearms.

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Swearing out / Block party / Free advice

(Editor’s note: On this holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., the Free Speech Center examines how the civil rights leader put First Amendment freedoms into action.)

Swearing out. An Air Force veteran had no First Amendment right to cuss out a therapist and police officers at a VA hospital, a federal appeals court has determined.

■ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis violated First Amendment protections when he suspended a state prosecutor for political gain, a federal court of appeals has ruled.
■ A New York judge has ordered Donald Trump to pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to reporters that he sued unsuccessfully over a 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning story.
■ Media expert Jack Greiner has examined whether the firing of a university chancellor who appeared in pornographic videos was a violation of his First Amendment rights.

‘Rare bug.’ OpenAI has been hit with a barrage of high-profile lawsuits, including one from The New York Times, which could test the future of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence products.
■ In a case involving Big Tech and being watched by several states, a federal appeals court has directed a lower court to consider the merits of a First Amendment challenge to Maryland’s digital advertising tax.
■ Project Veritas’ First Amendment claim pertaining to the alleged theft of a diary belonging to the daughter of President Biden was rejected by a U.S. district judge.
■ No matter where you stand regarding Project Veritas, transparency remains vital when government investigates newsgathering, concluded Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Seth Stern.

Block party. An Alaska judge has ruled against a state representative who blocked a reporter from his Facebook page.

■ The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to consider whether school board members on their personal social media accounts can block someone and delete their comments.
■ There may be no bigger hypocrite on free speech than Elon Musk, declared the co-founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation in an opinion piece for The Guardian.
■ Elon Musk said his decision to ban a Hamas-linked account from X “was a tough call” he made after deciding that Hamas was not a United Nations-recognized government.
■ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) means different things to different people but goes hand-in-hand with free speech, contended the CEO of PEN America in a CNN commentary.
■ An Indiana judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a University of Notre Dame professor who contended that a student newspaper defamed her in its abortion-rights news coverage.

No references? Dictionaries and encyclopedias are among the nearly 2,000 books pulled from the shelves of schools in Florida’s Escambia County as officials work to abide by a new state law.
■ After a tenure replete with prestigious awards and contentious contract negotiations and layoffs, Los Angeles Times executive editor Kevin Merida has stepped down.
■ A newspaper in the U.S. Virgin Islands that first published in 1844 is closing, its owner has announced.
■ The Messenger, a start-up launched by longtime media executives with an aim to transform journalism, is in dire financial straits, revenue disclosures showed.

Free advice. A First Amendment victory for a North Carolina retiree is another reinforcement in the battle against occupational licensing boards that work to silence opinions of expert professionals.
■ Abortion-rights supporters have completed a successful petition drive to get a Florida state constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot.
■ Gunmen with explosives stormed a television station in Ecuador during a live broadcast before police rescued the staff and arrested the perpetrators.
■ The Freedom of the Press Foundation has received a $10 million donation from Internet entrepreneur Jack Dorsey to further its work protecting press freedoms.

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Necessary evil? / F-no / More ammo

Necessary evil? Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds defended the First Amendment rights of a group that put up a satanic holiday display at the state capitol, igniting outrage.
■ Donald Trump’s presidential-immunity argument in his defamation lawsuit was rejected by a federal appeals court.

■ Elon Musk’s X is the target of the first EU probe over suspected failure to combat content disinformation.

■ Websites that host AI-created false news articles have grown by more than 1,000 percent, reported NewsGuard, an organization that tracks misinformation.

■ A Texas TikTok ban on state-owned devices and networks has been upheld by a federal judge.

Threat assessment. Concerns build as the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to clarify whether the use of rap lyrics in criminal prosecutions violates free-speech rights.
■ The Supreme Court refused to take up a case on whether state and local governments can enforce laws that ban conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ youth after a lower court ruled that such bans are unconstitutional restrictions on counselors’ speech.
■ A business reporter in Colorado has defied a court order to return suppressed records and delete electronic copies that he lawfully obtained.
■ In Cleveland, a settlement has removed restrictions and allowed the return of First Amendment access to court records.

F-no. A Pennsylvania man said government officials infringed on his First Amendment rights when he was forced to take down a sign that included a profanity.
■ Neither a Texas student nor his high school has budged on his suspension over his hairstyle.
■ Prison book bans punish the incarcerated by closing off the means of escape through fantastical ideas, wrote Moira Marquis in a Literary Hub opinion piece.
■ When it comes to free speech, her students can show us the way forward, contended a University of Pennsylvania history professor in a New York Times commentary.

More ammo. The ACLU is a surprising defender of the NRA in the gun-rights group’s First Amendment case.
■ Fox News disputed a former reporter’s argument that he was dismissed for challenging false claims about the Jan. 6 insurrection.

■ A Washington, D.C., transit agency decision to reject religious-themed ads on its buses violates the First Amendment, a new lawsuit contends.
■ David French has examined what university presidents got right and wrong about antisemitic speech in an opinion piece in The New York Times.

AleX-man. Former Infowars host Alex Jones has had his X (formerly Twitter) account restored by Elon Musk.
■ The First Amendment protects social media content moderation, explained the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) in a recent post.
■ For the RCFP, 2023 was a successful year in protecting the newsgathering rights of journalists.

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Tok block / Next chapter / AI blues

Tok block. A U.S. district judge has blocked a Montana state ban on using the video-sharing app TikTok that was set to take effect in January.
■ Elon Musk’s X Corp. has filed its defamation suit against Media Matters in Texas, apparently hoping to draw a sympathetic judge.
■ Another small-town newspaper has found itself on First Amendment front lines after local authorities arrest a reporter and the publisher.
■ A California reporter’s unpublished notes were surrendered to avoid a contempt-of-court ruling in a setback for press freedoms, advocates said.

Order form. Debating whether gag orders against Donald Trump violate the First Amendment is pointless, declared a former federal prosecutor in a recent commentary for The Daily Beast.
■ The on-again, off-again gag order barring Trump from making public statements in his civil fraud was reinstated by a New York appellate court.
■ With few victories, the press has kept up the fight in its battle against camera bans in Trump courtroom trials.
■ A longtime journalist for The New Yorker has explained why Trump’s trials should be on television in a recent commentary.

Next chapter. Librarians in several states who believe they were fired for opposing book bans have filed workplace-discrimination claims with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
■ Florida’s government has argued that the contents of a public library are “government speech,” giving it absolute control over what books are made available to students. First Amendment advocates, including Free Speech Center Director Ken Paulson, call the contention extreme and unfounded.

■ LGBTQ+ groups have sued the state of Iowa to stop a new law that bans certain books and gender-identity discussions in schools.

■ Parents can fight the release of a Tennessee school shooter’s writings, an appeals court ruled in a public-records case.

Moderation consideration. Messages on social media platforms are not protected under the First Amendment, but the U.S. Supreme Court could alter that, suggested Lynn Greenky in The Conversation.
■ A California district attorney reversed course after she came under fire from journalism advocates for barring a credentialed reporter from entering a press conference.
■ An Arizona journalist with visible press credentials and a camera was restrained and cited for criminal trespassing while covering a pro-Palestine protest in Tucson.

■ A Fox News correspondent, nearly killed by Russian bombs last year reporting from Ukraine, returned to the country for an interview with its president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

■ Dozens of journalists have been killed covering the Gaza war. Her friend was one of them.

AI blues. Sports Illustrated became the latest media company to have its reputation tarnished by the discovery of artificially generated articles, photos, and writers.
■ Josh Tyrangiel interpreted what SI’s AI controversy really means for journalism in a commentary for The Washington Post.
■ Former CNN boss Jeff Zucker’s bid to buy British news outlets was halted over concerns that the proposed deal constituted a “potential breach of media standards.”
■ Wisconsin lawmakers have introduced a bill that would protect student newspapers from school administration censorship.

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