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Tag: First Amendment

Budget, staff cuts pose the main threat to our free press

Budget, staff cuts pose the main threat to our free press

BOSTON — Newsrooms are slashing budgets and shedding reporters, posing an even greater threat to the free press than the president’s near-daily attacks on the media, ProPublica Editor-in-Chief Stephen Engelberg told the New England First Amendment Coalition. “In 1998 there were more than 400,000 people employed by newspapers across the country,” Engelberg said. “Today, we’re at 140,000 and dropping.” Engelberg received the 2019 Stephen Hamblett First Amendment Award at the annual NEFAC awards luncheon in Boston on Feb. 15. Named…

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The First Amendment and the Foxy Lady

The First Amendment and the Foxy Lady

Jared A. Goldstein, RWU School of Law associate dean for academic affairs, professor and former U.S. Department of Justice attorney: The exotic dancing at the Foxy Lady will never be confused with the Bolshoi Ballet. Indeed, some would consider it “low value” speech and condemn it as demeaning to women, offensive and immoral. Yet, the fact that some members of society may frown on this type of expression provides no basis to suppress it. Courts must be especially vigilant to…

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Despite attacks on free press, young journalists won’t be silenced

Despite attacks on free press, young journalists won’t be silenced

Kaylee Pugliese, RWU senior majoring in journalism:  At a Nov. 7 press conference, CNN reporter James Acosta asked President Donald Trump a question about immigrants from Central America traveling to the U.S. border. “I tell you what, CNN should be ashamed of itself, having you working for them,” Trump said. “You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN.” Even at a surface glance, this statement is an attack on Acosta and, therefore, an attack on the…

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An attack on the free press, an attack on democracy

An attack on the free press, an attack on democracy

Angeli Tillett, RWU junior majoring in journalism and political science: Coming into college as a journalism major was scary enough. Everyone always rants about how “journalism is dead” and how we’ll never find a place in a newsroom. Despite the negativity, we’re still here. But the future of journalism is growing even more uncertain as President Donald Trump continually attacks the media. On Nov. 7, Trump took the drastic step of revoking the “hard pass” of CNN Chief White House…

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White House must return Jim Acosta’s press credentials

White House must return Jim Acosta’s press credentials

Noah Ashe, RWU junior majoring in journalism and political science: The President of the United States and CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta engaged in a tense exchange on Wednesday, Nov. 7, that saw President Trump having one of his aides take the microphone out of Acosta’s hands and the President berating the reporter, calling him a “rude and terrible person.” Acosta, CNN’s longstanding White House correspondent, was not doing anything wrong or out of the ordinary. He was fulfilling…

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Alex Jones might not find refuge in First Amendment

Alex Jones might not find refuge in First Amendment

Edward Fitzpatrick, RWU director of media and public relations, a New England First Amendment Coalition and Common Cause Rhode Island board member, and a former Providence Journal columnist: The First Amendment protects a lot of outlandish, hateful speech. It protected the right of Westboro Baptist Church members to hold anti-gay protests at the funerals of fallen soldiers. And it protected the right of neo-Nazis to march through the Chicago suburb of Skokie where many Holocaust survivors lived (they ended up…

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Infowars Goes to War with the First Amendment

Infowars Goes to War with the First Amendment

David A. Logan, professor of law and former dean of the RWU School of Law, who has studied and written extensively about First Amendment issues: The malicious spreading of rumors, masquerading as fact, well predates the Internet, but the ubiquity and speed of electronic communications, and the tendency of social media to provide amplification, has made the problem exponentially more dangerous to the “marketplace of ideas.” Perhaps there is no better example of that cancer on public discourse than Infowars,…

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Discovering Trump

Discovering Trump

David A. Logan, professor of law and former dean of the RWU School of Law, who has studied and written extensively about First Amendment issues: Reporters, like litigators, spend much of their time talking with people and slogging through documents, trying to establish what happened. For lawyers, this tedious but essential work is called discovery. Right now, teams of lawyers across the country, representing both the government and private citizens, are doggedly “discovering” evidence to determine whether Donald Trump, as a businessman…

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Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling: No Constitutional Right to Discriminate (For Now)

Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling: No Constitutional Right to Discriminate (For Now)

Jared A. Goldstein, RWU law professor who teaches constitutional law and former U.S. Department of Justice attorney: By cutting a narrow slice of the wedding cake case, the U.S. Supreme Court has created little new law, meaning there remains no constitutional right to discriminate – at least for now. On June 4, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission – the case of a cake shop owner who refused to bake a…

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Latest attacks on free press will fail, New Yorker’s Jane Mayer says

Latest attacks on free press will fail, New Yorker’s Jane Mayer says

Kayla Ebner, a junior journalism major and managing editor of the RWU student newspaper, The Hawks’ Herald: BOSTON – This is all of our fight. Jane Mayer, investigative journalist for The New Yorker, delivered a powerful speech on Feb. 23 at the New England First Amendment Coalition’s awards luncheon in Boston, where she received the Stephen Hamblett First Amendment award for her most recent book, “Dark Money,” and her other journalistic accomplishments. Starting off at the smallest weekly newspaper in Vermont, Mayer worked…

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