A media law professor found that it’s not just the public that is uninformed about the First Amendment, that when questioned media law lawyers and professors cited a number of misunderstandings common to journalists. One was the belief that the First Amendment only applies to government actions and not to private actors such as social media platforms; another that journalists enjoy greater constitutional protections for news gathering when in fact journalists, depending on the jurisdiction, have very few rights above those accorded to any other citizen. (Columbia Journalism Review, February 5, 20-18, by Jonathan Peters)
Journalists currently face a number of challenges not the least the political attacks against them in the Trump era. The First Amendment Institute’s quarterly report card on the state of the First Amendment gave press freedom a C grade. Leading constitutional experts credited the mediocre score to President Donald Trump’s continuing attacks on the news media and his challenge of prominent reporting. (Newseum Institute, January 24, 2018)