Peter Scheer

BY SUSAN SEAGER–Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck’s release of security camera footage showing 18-year-old Carnell Snell Jr. moments before he was shot to death by LAPD officers in South Los Angeles on Saturday is a first step away from the department’s secrecy policy for tapes of fatal shootings. But Beck hasn’t moved far enough. The LAPD and the Los Angeles Police Commission should jettison the strict rules they set up in 2015 that routinely

In an interview with Pacific Standard, I discussed the Hulk Hogan lawsuit against Gawker—or more precisely, the role of billionaire Peter Thiel, who financed the litigation even though he was not a party in the case and had no legal standing to be one. From the transcript: . . . . .  “I’m afraid that the legacy of the Gawker suit will be that journalists everywhere are not quite sure what went wrong in that

Because of legal restrictions on nonprofit, “charitable” organizations, I am not allowed to say that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to First Amendment freedoms. I believe it to be true.  But as executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, I am supposed to keep such thoughts to myself. The freedom to engage in public debate during the run-up to an election—criticizing one candidate, supporting an opponent—is taken for granted in America and rightly considered

The First Amendment Coalition has teamed up with leading associations of ethnic news media, both in California and nationally, to provide their members free legal consultations on questions about their rights as journalists. The associations are California Black Media (CBM) and New America Media (NAM). CBM is a statewide information and education network for some 40 African-American media outlets across the state. NAM, founded in 1996, is the country’s largest advocate for ethnic media. FAC