First Amendment News

U.S. Right to Know Research Director Carey Gillam in The Guardian, August 9, 2019, describes how Monsanto, in the news recently for its herbicide Roundup, devised a plan to discredit the findings in her 2017 book on the suppression of science in marketing its herbicides. They recruited employees to write negative reviews of the book. And during the Roundup cancer trial last march they posted one of their employees to pose as a reporter and

Citing the “considerable public importance” of federal government records on the killing Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. district judge ordered the Departments of State and Defense to release 5,000 pages monthly related to the killing. Open government advocates who sued for the records said it is crucial to gain the records given the urgency of the issue. The government said releasing the records would tie up their staffs, keeping them from responding to

The consolidation of the U.S. daily newspapers continued with New Media purchasing Gannett Co. for $1.4 billion in cash and stock. The company will command 8.7 million in circulation compared to McClatchy in second place with 7 million. New Media’s news company GateHouse Media released this statement on the acquisition, “Uniting our talented employees and complementary portfolios will enable us to expand our comprehensive, hyperlocal coverage for consumers, deepen our product offering for local businesses, and

Nevada is subject of a free speech lawsuit for refusing to register the name “WTF Party” for political candidates. The state told plaintiff Jeffrey Berns that the party name is a profane acronym and contemptible of the political process. Berns’ lawyer said a 1992 Supreme Court ruling established the right to form political parties.  (Nevada Appeal, August 1, 2019, by Ken Ritter of The Associated Press) The city of Charlottesville, Virginia is trying to collect

The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that former VP candidate Sarah Palin should be given a chance to explain her accusation of actual malice in her defamation lawsuit dismissed in district court. Palin sued in 2017 over an unsigned editorial written by James Bennet who tried to make a connection between over-heated politic speech and the 2011 mass shooting in Arizona that wounded Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. The Court wrote, “It is clear to us that