First Amendment News

HCA Healthcare, the largest healthcare system in the U.S., sent an e-mail to its employees warning them that they could be fired for speaking out about policies relating to the pandemic. One California nurse in the system has already been suspended without pay for commenting on social media about equipment shortages. HCA claimed she violated patient privacy in citing shortages. (Business Insider, April 7, 2020, by Allana Akhtar) Health care workers across the U.S. have

The Federal Communications Commission refused to consider a petition by Free Press, an activist group, calling for an investigation of broadcasters airing false information on the pandemic provided by President Donald Trump during White House briefings. The FCC said they could not act as requested since that would jeopardize the free press. (Jurist, April 7, 2020, by Austin Koltonowski) Free Press was particularly concerned about Trump’s comments about hydroxycholoroquine as a promising treatment for COVID-19.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case brought by the Catholic church against a Washington, D.C. transit district ban of a reoligious ad on its buses. A lower court ruling for the district rested on a concession by the plaintiff that the ad space on buses was not a public forum. Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented, “The one thing it the transit district] cannot do is what it did here—permit a subject sure to

Journalism professors addressed a letter to Fox News to stop disseminating false information about the pandemic. In a letter to Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch, the professors said Fox was violating core principles of journalism and enabling the spread of the coronavirus. Seventy-four academics and journalists signed the letter as of last week. The letter said, “The basic purpose of news organizations is to discover and tell the truth. This is especially necessary, and obvious, amid

One of the oldest fact-checking organizations finds itself inundated with bogus information about the coronavirus. Snopes has been forced to choose which claims to debunk as nonsense about the disease crowds the internet. It has experienced a 50 percent increase in traffic to its website in the last 30 days as it discredits claims such as the one that suggests vodka as a substitute for hand sanitizer. At the same time, people are using medications