donal brown

More evidence that the news media is in the dumpster emerged this week with the news that 500 workers lost their jobs last week. The layoffs occurred at Vice, Quartz, The Economist, Conde Nast and Buzzfeed. It is now abundantly clear the industry needs a new business model apart from ad revenue and subscription income. (Axios, May 20, 2020, by Sara Fischer and Scott Rosenberg) During the pandemic, people are clamoring for news, but ad

The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that making the visitor logs public for Mar-a-Lago and the Trump Tower would impair President Donald Trump’s ability to seek counsel from visitors and leaders outside of government. For related FAC coverage, click here, here and here.

In hearing two cases on access to President Donald Trump’s personal financial records, the U.S. Supreme Court seemed poised to limit access for Congress but to allow a New York prosecutor to examine tax records. The majority seemed to think it was excessive to demand years of Trump’s records along with those of family members. But a majority also expressed the opinion that the president was subject to the justice system including a grand jury

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the House of Representatives in their quest for grand jury records relating to the Mueller probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The court gave the Justice Department a stay to the D.C. Circuit order for release, a stay that the House Judiciary Committee may challenge before May 18. (Courthouse News Service, May 8, 2020, by Jack Rodgers) The House Democrats wanted the records as part of their

A San Francisco Bay Area public broadcasting company is petitioning the California Highway Patrol for records of office misconduct and use-of -force denied after the state legislature enacted a police transparency law in 2019. With a coalition of news groups, KQED wants records relating to incidents involving injury to or sexual assault of the public. ( KQED, May 9, 2020, by Julie Small, Sukey Lewis and Alex Emslie with contributions from Dan Brekke) The petition