Justice Department that issues legal opinions setting disclosure and other legal policies for federal agencies. One of its biggest wins, so far, has been an effort to force to light opinions issued by the Office of Legal Counsel, an office of the U.S. “We try to bring cases that will have the effect of changing government policy with respect to transparency,” Jaffer said. For example, while the Institute doesn’t get involved in fighting for every Freedom of Information Act request, it does look for cases that can be transformative. Its litigation efforts address more conventional First Amendment battles as well as the cases involving new technology. Jaffer said he was drawn to the opportunity to establish the Institute because the chance to work on issues such as disinformation, polarization, the erosion of traditional journalism and the impact of all of that on society was “really the most exciting and important set of issues to be working on right now.” The Institute has three main pillars: litigation, research, and public education. A 2016 Knight Foundation poll of leading newsroom editors agreed with that assessment, and revealed that editors believed the news industry was less able to pursue cases involving free speech and freedom of the press than they had been a decade earlier.Īs one of the initial funders for the Institute, Arnold Ventures saw the impact an organization like this one could achieve. The Knight Institute grew out of the concern that First Amendment case law was falling behind in the technological, social media-focused landscape. “We need to reimagine the First Amendment for the digital age.” Tackling the Difficult Cases “It’s going to involve a larger public debate about what values we think the First Amendment was meant to serve, and whether those values are in fact being served by the First Amendment as it exists today,” he added. A lot of the principles we took for granted, a lot of the basic assumptions of First Amendment doctrine and free speech, may not apply given the context we’re living in now.”įiguring out how the First Amendment applies to this new landscape will require litigation, legislation and new regulations, Jaffer said. “We have new technology, we have new business models, new communications platforms. “Many things have changed since then,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director for the Knight Institute, an Arnold Ventures journalism grantee. These court battles were fought by well-heeled newspaper publishers who believed it was important to define press freedoms. The modern interpretation of the First Amendment was established largely through landmark legal cases in the 1960s and 1970s, such as the Pentagon Papers and Times vs. What does First Amendment protection look like in a digital-first world? Who gets protected? And how?Įnter the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which has stepped into the void to take on these tough questions, fighting to establish legal precedent for free speech in a new era of media and discourse. Meanwhile, disinformation and misinformation campaigns have found traction with newer and more expansive audiences, with social media companies under fire for de-platforming high-profile personalities. The polarizing effects of these twin forces became even more apparent during the pandemic as journalism outlets struggled with record layoffs, plunging revenue, and shuttered newsrooms. Send us feedback about these examples.Amid a collapse of for-profit journalism and with an equally dramatic rise in social media, questions about how best to protect free speech and a free press have become more complicated than ever. These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'freedom of the press.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. 2023 In America, the freedom of the press is often exercised as the freedom to congregate in exactly the same place at the same time, not doing much. Jonathan Weisman, New York Times, 1 Apr. 2023 Likewise, Fox News will almost certainly continue to frame the Dominion case as that of a corporation intent on stifling the First Amendment’s guarantees of free speech and freedom of the press. 2023 Fox has defended its coverage as newsworthy and called the suit an attack on freedom of the press. Harry Bruinius, The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Apr. 2023 The Supreme Court overturned the Alabama court’s decision 9-0, and used what was a minor case to proclaim this larger principle about the meaning of free speech and freedom of the press. Anton Troianovski, New York Times, 18 Apr. Putin’s most drastic attacks to date on freedom of the press. Recent Examples on the Web The Gershkovich case represents one of Mr.
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