■ Owner Jeff Bezos reportedly told staff that The Washington Post would no longer publish opinion pieces that failed to support and defend personal liberties and free markets.
■ U.S. Supreme Court justices refused to hear cases from abortion foes that contend limiting anti-abortion demonstrations near clinics violates their First Amendment rights.
■
A Trump administration immigration
policy allowing agents to make arrests in churches was blocked by a
federal judge.
Handpicking hand-wringing. The White House has always had a contentious relationship with the press but the takeover of the press pool is a brazen attack on the First Amendment, declared MSNBC’s Symone Sanders-Townsend.
■ After being barred from President Trump’s media events over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, The Associated Press has sued the administration.
■ The AP’s losing its White House access violated the First Amendment, which states that government cannot use its power to punish people for what they have said or written, asserted Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.
■ The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge from conservative college students that school policy on bias reporting violated their free-speech rights.
Handpicking hand-wringing. The White House has always had a contentious relationship with the press but the takeover of the press pool is a brazen attack on the First Amendment, declared MSNBC’s Symone Sanders-Townsend.
■ After being barred from President Trump’s media events over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, The Associated Press has sued the administration.
■ The AP’s losing its White House access violated the First Amendment, which states that government cannot use its power to punish people for what they have said or written, asserted Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.
■ The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge from conservative college students that school policy on bias reporting violated their free-speech rights.
■ PEN America denounced Trump’s executive order declaring English as the United States’ official language, calling it “a fundamental affront to the founding democratic ideals of this country.”
Saving Sullivan. If MAGA billionaire Steve Wynn succeeds in getting the landmark New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision overturned, “we will have lost freedom of the press,” opined MSNBC senior editor Anthony L. Fisher in a recent commentary.
■ The Massachusetts student who was banned from wearing a “There are only two genders” shirt at school could get a boost from a presidential executive order as his lawyers push the Supreme Court to hear his case.
■ LGBTQ+ advocates explained in a report by Nashville's WPLN why they do not mind that Tennessee’s “drag ban” is here to stay.
Saving Sullivan. If MAGA billionaire Steve Wynn succeeds in getting the landmark New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision overturned, “we will have lost freedom of the press,” opined MSNBC senior editor Anthony L. Fisher in a recent commentary.
■ The Massachusetts student who was banned from wearing a “There are only two genders” shirt at school could get a boost from a presidential executive order as his lawyers push the Supreme Court to hear his case.
■ LGBTQ+ advocates explained in a report by Nashville's WPLN why they do not mind that Tennessee’s “drag ban” is here to stay.
■ Explicit license plates are not considered protected speech, the Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled, upholding a state ban.
Wired for politics. The editorial director of tech-focused news outlet Wired acted on an idea that technology was intersecting politics and the subsequent reporting paid off even before Elon Musk latched onto the president.
■ Demonstrators have been arrested at anti-Musk protests outside Tesla dealerships across the nation.
■ Thousands gathered at scores of national parks to protest the Trump administration’s firing of nearly 1,000 park service employees.
■ A Pennsylvania town that prohibited police officers and other public employees from displaying “Thin Blue Line” flags violated the First Amendment, a federal appeals court has ruled.
Anchors away. Recent departures of career television journalists could be part of a traditional cycle but also may signal fallout from the slow decline in relevance of TV news, Variety reported.
■ A Mississippi judge vacated her order, widely condemned by free-press advocates, that a local newspaper remove an editorial criticizing local officials.
■ Reporter and podcaster Meribah Knight, who chronicled the efforts of Nashville mothers pushing for gun reform following a school shooting there, has been honored with the National Press Foundation’s 2024 Reporting on Women in Politics Award.
■ West Virginia senators voted to dismantle one of the nation’s strictest school vaccination policies by giving exemptions to families that say mandated inoculations conflict with their religious beliefs.
Wired for politics. The editorial director of tech-focused news outlet Wired acted on an idea that technology was intersecting politics and the subsequent reporting paid off even before Elon Musk latched onto the president.
■ Demonstrators have been arrested at anti-Musk protests outside Tesla dealerships across the nation.
■ Thousands gathered at scores of national parks to protest the Trump administration’s firing of nearly 1,000 park service employees.
■ A Pennsylvania town that prohibited police officers and other public employees from displaying “Thin Blue Line” flags violated the First Amendment, a federal appeals court has ruled.
Anchors away. Recent departures of career television journalists could be part of a traditional cycle but also may signal fallout from the slow decline in relevance of TV news, Variety reported.
■ A Mississippi judge vacated her order, widely condemned by free-press advocates, that a local newspaper remove an editorial criticizing local officials.
■ Reporter and podcaster Meribah Knight, who chronicled the efforts of Nashville mothers pushing for gun reform following a school shooting there, has been honored with the National Press Foundation’s 2024 Reporting on Women in Politics Award.
■ West Virginia senators voted to dismantle one of the nation’s strictest school vaccination policies by giving exemptions to families that say mandated inoculations conflict with their religious beliefs.