Coalition News

Tonight, members of the Santa Ana City Council will consider withdrawing a policy that restricts journalists covering the council. Our comments state: “The policy interferes with the ability of the press to exercise editorial discretion in covering public meetings and runs afoul of the Ralph M. Brown Act’s provisions guaranteeing the public’s ability to record.”

The homelessness crisis is one of the biggest issues facing California. To understand the human toll of housing insecurity and to assess the efficacy of government response, we depend on journalists to sort fact from fiction. And to bear witness when governments take action. That is especially true when it comes to sweeps of homeless encampments. Following a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling giving government broad powers to evict homeless people and clear their belongings,

A coalition of 23 press rights and civil liberties organizations, today call on California officials to operate with maximum transparency and respect the role of the press in observing and documenting sweeps of homeless encampments.