First Amendment News

Baltimore asked for a rehearing of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that gag orders in police misconduct settlements violated the First Amendment and were unenforceable. The city said the gag order did not obstruct the media’s right to report the news and was a matter of contract law. (Baltimore Brew, July 23, 2019, by Fern Shen) The Baltimore Brew filed the lawsuit against Baltimore and its police force after an alleged victim

With Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony to Congress, the Iran crisis and continued controversy over the treatment of immigrants and President Donald Trump’s racist attacks on members of Congress, Stephanie Grisham, the new administration spokesperson, has done little speaking, not even appearing  on Fox News. She appears content to let Trump rule the news cycle. (Politico, July 23, 2019, by Nancy Cook) Most of the Democratic presidential candidates spoke on the record in support of

The Washington Post and the Charleston Gazette-Mail in West Virginia successfully sued to obtain a database with detailed drug industry transactions submitted to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration revealing the complicity of the industry, from manufacturers to retailers, in the overuse of opioids resulting in the deaths of 46,700 from overdoses in 2017 alone. (CNN, July 18, 2019, by Michael Nedelman and Arman Azad with reporting from Nadfia Kounang and Minali Nigam) The data shows

Hospitals will have to disclose the discounts they are negotiating with insurance companies, enabling patients to seek lower rates for a range of medical services, the Trump administration announced this week. These negotiations have always been secret with hospitals and insurers claiming they were proprietary information. The hospital industry is expected to challenge the rule in court.  (The New York Times, July 29, 2019, by Reed Abelson and Abby Goodnough) The new rule would require

Media Law Professor Frank D. LoMonte, CNN, June 12, 2019, writes that the Trump administration has clamped down on workers’ rights and seems ready to weaken a section of the 85-year-old National Labor Relations Act that protected the free speech rights of private-sector workers to discuss their working conditions with each other, friends and the media. The act has long been seen as essential to employees in enlisting the public to improve the workplace. A clampdown