Category Archives: First Amendment

The Post and Courier's "Watched" series chronicling police surveillance tactics has won the grand prize for work advancing the principles of the First Amendment in thethe 2017 Associated Press Media Editors Awards.

The three-part series by reporters Glenn Smith and Andrew Knapp was among the top honorees in the annual APME Awards, which recognizes watchdog journalism that saved lives, exposed bias, held government officials accountable and shed light on hidden practices. Winners will be recognized at an October conference in Washington, D.C.

"Watched" detailed how police forces across the United States are stockpiling massive databases with personal information from millions of Americans who simply crossed paths with officers. The series explored the pervasive but little-known police practice of gathering data from "suspicious" citizens in the absence of an arrest. That data can be stored indefinitely and used to track a persons movements and habits over time.

Critics contend the practice can intrude on privacy and keep innocent people under a permanent cloud of suspicion.

APME judges noted the series "produced results in Charleston, where the police chief announced an initiative to purge innocent people from the departments database, and won praise from civil libertarians and police alike for shedding light on surveillance techniques often hidden from public view."

"Watched" had previously won a National Headliner Award and took first-place honors for investigative and public service reporting in the South Carolina Press Association Awards.

Reach Glenn Smith at 843-937-5556 or follow him on Twitter @glennsmith5.

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Post and Courier wins prestigious APME First Amendment award for series on police tracking methods - Charleston Post Courier

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens has decided that taking millions of dollars in anonymous campaign loot makes him a champion of the First Amendment.

You have folks in the liberal media who are out of touch and have lost their minds, Greitens told KTVI Channel 2 last week. Now they are opposed to the First Amendment.

The governor rarely uses the word media without the adjective liberal, nor his political opponents as anything but career politicians. Both the media and politicians from both parties have criticized him for preaching ethics reform while taking nearly $4 million in dark money from federal super PACs during his campaign. He used a dark money Committee for a New Missouri to pay for his inauguration. It was then rolled into an ongoing dark fund to promote Greitens.

This would be ethically dubious for anyone, but particularly for a man who early in his campaign criticized candidates who set up these secretive super PACs where they dont take any responsibility for what theyre doing.

He told St. Louis Public radio in January 2016 that Ive been very proud to tell people: Im stepping forward, and you can see every single one of our donors, because we are proud of our donors and we are proud of the campaign we are running.

As Greitens, a scholar of Greek ethics, certainly knows, the word hypocrite comes from the Greek hypokrites, which means an actor whos pretending.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never definitively said that anonymous political contributions are protected by the First Amendment. The case law on anonymous speech is all over the place. Anonymous leafleting is OK, but petition signatures cant be kept secret.

The court never envisioned that groups would incorporate as social welfare organizations under the IRS code and use the anonymity granted to, say, Rotary Club donors to hide political donations. Indeed, in Citizens United vs. FEC, which opened the door to unlimited corporate campaign donations, the court took it for granted that full disclosure would cover any suspicions of corruption or bribery.

Greitens dubious First Amendment claims are supported by conservative activists like the Center for Competitive Politics. Its president, David Keating, once said his goal was to do for the First Amendment what the NRA did for the Second. If he means distort it beyond anything the Founders ever imagined, hes well on his way.

We prefer the up-front attitude of Geoffrey Standing Bear of Oklahoma, chief of the Osage Nation, which hopes to build an Indian casino in Crawford County. Yes, he told the Post-Dispatchs Tony Messenger, hed given $52,700 to Greitens dark money committee.

That was me trying to establish a good relationship with the governor of Missouri, he said. We thought we would show him respect.

The Tony Soprano rule applies: Those who want respect, give respect.

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Editorial: Greitens stashes his sneaky money behind the First Amendment - STLtoday.com

If anyone believes that under the First Amendment gagging the media cant happen here, the answer is that it already has.

Reporters attempt to pose questions to President Donald Trump during a news conference on Feb. 16, 2017. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Of all the incredible statements issuing from the fantasy factory that is the imagination of Donald Trump, the one he recently made in a speech to graduates of the Coast Guard academy, that no politician in history and I say this with great surety has been treated worse or so unfairly sets an unenviable record for brazen ignorance plus a toxic mix of self-aggrandizement and self-pity. In his eyes, the most villainous persecutors are the mainstream fake news organizations that dare to oppose his actions and expose his lies.

So, having already banned nosy reporters from news corporations that he doesnt like, branded their employers as enemies of the nation and expressed a wish to departed FBI Director James Comey that those in the White House who leak his secrets should be jailed, why should there be any doubt that he would, if he could, clap behind bars reporters whom, in his own cockeyed vision, he saw as hostile? His fingers itch to sign an order or even better a law that would give him that power. Could he possibly extract such legislation from Congress?

Such a bill might accuse the press of seditious libel, meaning the circulation of an opinion tending to induce a belief that an action of the government was hostile to the liberties and happiness of the people. It also could be prohibited to defame the president by declarations directly or indirectly to criminate his motives in conducting official business.

If anyone believes that under the First Amendment gagging the media cant happen here, the answer is that it already has.

With a net that wide, practically anything that carried even the slightest whiff of criticism could incur a penalty of as much as five years in jail and a fine of $5,000. Just for good measure, couple it with an Act Concerning Aliens, giving the president the right to expel any foreign-born resident not yet naturalized whom he considers dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States without a charge or a hearing.

How Trump would relish that kind of imaginary power over his enemies!

I didnt make up those words. They are part of actual laws the Alien and Sedition Acts, passed in the summer of 1798 and signed by John Adams, our second president and titular leader of the conservative Federalist Party. Men were actually tried, imprisoned and fined for such sedition. If anyone believes that under the First Amendment gagging the media cant happen here, the answer is that it already has.

John Adams by John Turnbull, 1793. (National Portrait Gallery)

How did it happen? Just as it could happen again today in the midst of a national emergency. In Adams day, it was a war scare with France that produced a flurry of stand behind the president resolutions, a hugely expanded military budget (including the beginnings of the US Navy), demonstrations of approval in front of Adams residence and a conviction among the Federalists that members of Congress who talked of peace namely the Republicans, the pro-French opposition party who at that time were the more liberal of the two parties, [held] their countrys honor and safety too cheap.

In other words, just the kind of emergency that could be produced at any time in our present climate by a terrorist attack here at home genuine, exaggerated or contrived and pounced upon by the man in the White House.

Do I exaggerate? Read the chilling report of the April 30 interview between Jon Karl of ABC News and Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus, who said the president might change libel laws so he could sue publishers. When Karl suggested that this might require amending the Constitution, Priebus replied, I think its something that weve looked at, and how that gets executed or whether that goes anywhere is a different story.

This is reality. A lying president aspiring to become a tinpot dictator is making his move. Its time to be afraid, but not too afraid to be prepared.

This is reality. A lying president aspiring to become a tinpot dictator is making his move. Its time to be afraid, but not too afraid to be prepared.

Lets briefly flash back to 1798. In the bitter contest between Federalists and Republicans, their weapons were the rambunctious, robust and nose-thumbing newspapers of the time, run by owner-editors and publishers who simply called themselves printers. They werent above dirtying their own hands with smears of ink, nor was there any tradition of objectivity. A British traveler of a slightly later time wrote that defamation exists all over the world, but it is incredible to what extent this vice is carried in America.

Nobody escaped calumny, not even the esteemed father of his country. Benjamin Franklin Bache, Republican editor of the Philadelphia Aurora, commented as George Washington departed office that his administration had been tainted with dishonor, injustice, treachery, meanness and perfidy if ever a nation was debauched by a man, the American nation has been debauched by WASHINGTON.

Bache also had had harsh words for old, bald, blind, querulous, toothless, crippled John Adams, sounding very much like a pre-dawn Trump tweet aimed at some critic of His Mightiness. You might not find that kind of personal invective now in The New York Times or The Washington Post, but its familiar on right-wing talk radio and would sound at home coming from the mouths of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or Ann Coulter. The mode of dissemination changes; the ugliness at the core is unchanged.

Stung and furious, Adams and his Federalist supporters in Congress pushed the Sedition Act through Congress, though by a narrow majority. But could it survive a legal challenge from the Republican minority under the First Amendments guarantee of press freedom? The Federalists answered with a legal interpretation that the guarantee only covered prior restraint, which meant that a license from a government censor was required before publication of any opinion. Once it actually emerged in print, however, it had to take its chances with libel and defamation suits, even by public officials. Today,prior restraint is judicially dead, but the question of who is a public official and can be criticized without fear of retaliation in the courts continues to produce litigation.

But in 1787 argument made little difference. With the trumpets and drums of war blaring and thundering, the Constitution, as usually happens in such times, was little more than a paper barrier. Some provisions were added that would help the defense in a prosecution under its provisions. Moreover, the act was ticketed to expire automatically on March 3, 1801, the day before a new president and Congress would take office and either renew the law or leave it in its grave which is precisely what happened when Thomas Jefferson and the Republicans eventually won the 1800 election.

Nevertheless, during its slightly more than two years in force that produced only a handful of indictments, the Sedition Act did some meaningful damage. It produced what Jefferson called a reign of witches harmful enough to prove it was a travesty of justice, but not enough to become a full-blown reign of terror like the disappearances and executions of modern tyrannies.

The act never succeeded in its purpose of muzzling all criticism of the government, and in fact worked to the contrary. The toughest sentence 18 months in jail and a fine of $450 a huge sum in those days when whole families never saw as much as $100 in cash was imposed on a Massachusetts eccentric who put up a Liberty Pole in Dedham denouncing the acts and cheering for Jefferson and the Republicans. Other convictions for equally innocuous crimes defined by zealous prosecutors as sedition inflicted undeserved punishment by any standard of fairness. But two were especially consequential thanks to the backlash they produced.

After the House failed to expel Matthew Lyon for the gross indecency of spitting tobacco juice at Roger Griswold, the latter sought justice by attacking Lyon on the House floor (then located in Philadelphias Congress Hall) with a cane. Lyon defended himself with a pair of fire tongs. Commemorating the row between Representatives, this 1798 etching includes verse describing the scene, including the detail that Lyon seized the tongs to ease his wrongs. (US House of Representatives)

One involved Matthew Lyon, a hot-tempered Vermont congressman, who ran a newspaper in which he accused Adams of a continual grasp for power and a thirst for ridiculous pomp that should have put him in a madhouse. For that he got a $1,000 fine and four months of jail time in an unheated felons cell in midwinter. But numerous Republican admirers raised the money to pay his fine. Asenator from Virginia rode north to personally deliver saddlebags full of collected cash. Lyon even ran for re-election from jail in December and swamped his opponent by 2,000 votes. His return to his seat in the House was celebrated joyfully by Republican crowds.

Jedidiah Peck from upstate New York was also indicted for his heinous offense of circulating a petition for the repeal of both the Alien and Sedition Acts. At each stop in his five-day trip to New York City for trial, the sight of him in manacles, watched over by a federal marshal, provoked anti-Federalist demonstrations. His case was dropped in 1800, and he was also easily re-elected to his seat in the New York assembly.

In fact, the entire Republican triumph in that years election was in good part a backlash to the censorship power grab of the Federalists. Literate voters of 1800, kept informed by a vigorous press, were not going to put padlocks on their tongues or take Federalist overreach lying down. Maybe it was from ingrained love of liberty or plain orneriness, or maybe because they were tougher to distract than we their heirs, beset by a constant barrage of entertainment, advertisements and other forms of trivial amusements.

If Trump keeps repeating fake news over and over at every exposure of some misdemeanor, eventually the number of believers in that falsehood will swell.

Because that stream of noise is constant and virtually unavoidable by anyone not living in a cave, we are vulnerable to the tactic of the unapologetic Big Lie. If Trump keeps repeating fake news over and over at every exposure of some misdemeanor, eventually the number of believers in that falsehood will swell.

Genuine trouble is at our doorstep. If that statement from Reince Priebus is taken at face value, our bully-in-chief is looking for nothing less than control of the court of public opinion through management of the media by criminalizing criticism all behind a manufactured faade of governing in the name of the people.

With the example of 1798 before us, we need to resolve that any such effort can and must be met with the same kind of opposition mounted by that first generation of Americans living under the Constitution. If we want to be worthy of them, we need to use all our strength and resolution in deploying tactics of resistance. We need to fill the streets, overwhelm our lawmakers with calls and letters, reward them with our votes when they check the arrogance of power and strengthen their backbones when they waver. Any of us who gets a chance to speak at public gatherings and ceremonies should grab it to remind the audience that without freedom of speech, assembly and protest there is no real freedom. If the First Amendment vanishes, the rest of the Bill of Rights goes with it. And were dangerously close.

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Red Alert: The First Amendment Is in Danger BillMoyers.com - BillMoyers.com

One week after a double murder on a Portland MAX train horrified the city, a man riding a Blue Line MAX in East Portland started pummeling a TriMet operator who asked him to stop screaming about First Amendment rights.

The alleged assault occurred shortly after 2:15 pm this afternoon at the MAX station on East 102nd Avenue and Burnside Street. As the train approached the station, the operator asked a passenger to stop shouting, says Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Chris Burley.

"He was screaming and yelling about First Amendment rights," says Burley. "The operator of the train broadcast over the loudspeaker that he needed to quiet down."

When the train reached its stop, the operator went into the train's passenger car to ask the man to leave. The passenger physically attacked him, though accounts differ slightly on how. Police say he punched the driver. "He struck him several times," says Burley.

TriMet says the driver was pushed to the ground. Other passengers pulled the man off the driver.

TriMet spokeswoman Roberta Altstadt says the driver wasn't seriously hurt.

"The operator received minor cuts and bruises, that sort of thing, but wasn't transported for medical care," she says. "He will be fine."

The alleged assailant was arrested blocks away. Police have identified him as 23-year-old Steven Caldwell. He's been charged with fourth degree assault and three misdemeanors.

The assault comes at a raw moment for the city.

It's been one week since two men were killed trying to stop the anti-Muslim harassment of two teenage girls on a Green Line MAX train. The suspected killer, Jeremy Joseph Christian, is a white supremacist with suspected ties to right-wing extremists who have repeatedly roiled Portland with protests.

This Sunday, those "alt-right" protesters pledge to return for a rally that could mean more violence in an already tense city. Plans for counter-demonstrations are rapidly forming to disrupt the group's rallyin Terry Schrunk Plaza downtown.

At the center of these far-right protests is the demand for free speech. That demand often means pushing the boundaries of unpopular and racist rhetoric in hopes of inciting a violent response from left-wing foils.

Christian, who marched with these groups in April, entered his arraignment hearing Tuesday yelling, "Free speech or die, Portland!"

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Man Pummels MAX Train Operator While Screaming About First Amendment Rights - Willamette Week

Although Milo Yiannopoulos has resigned from Breitbart, the British-born journalist has found a way to remain in the U.S. Veuer's Amanda Kabbabe (@kabbaber) has more. Buzz60

News Sentinel Editor Jack McElroy(Photo: Paul Efird)

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. - Evelyn Beatrice Hall

This past legislative session, state Rep. Martin Daniel introduced a bill he dubbed the Milo Bill" for Milo Yiannopoulos, the controversialex-Breitbart writer whose plans to speak at the University of California atBerkeleysparked rioting that caused the cancellation ofhis appearance.

The bill was supposed to protect freedom of speech on Tennessee campuses, a measure opponents considered unnecessary.

Rep. Mike Stewart, D-Nashville, also complained about naming bills after people that promote racism, pedophilia and hatred.

Daniel rethought the name, too, after Yiannopoulos was caught on video condoning sex between men and boys. The Knoxville Republican tweeted:"It will also be known as the Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, & the MLK JR. bill.

Too bad.

The First Amendment doesnt need help from the Tennessee legislature. But if it did, a law named after Yiannopoulos would be appropriate. The man makes a living being offensive. Thats exactly what the First Amendment must protect.

A related issue arose last week when the mayor of Portland, Ore., called on the feds to block demonstrators supporting the white supremacist who screamed slurs at women on a light-rail train then stabbed to death two men who came to their defense.

Hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment, the mayor declared.

Actually, it is.The Supreme Court has made that clear in cases ranging from a 1969 rulingin favor of a KKK leader who called for "revengeance" against African Americans and Jews to a 2010 decision supporting the Westboro Baptist Church's right to picket a soldiers funeral with signs saying, "Thank God for dead soldiers."

There's a reasonvile speech must be protected. That'swhere tolerance is put to the test.

There's no need to protect speech with which everyone agrees. If Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Tom Paine or Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the University of Tennessee today, the cheers would be heard in Chattanooga.

Milo? Not so much.

Unfortunately, Americans forget this concept from time to time..

The past year has seen several instances of students trying to stop controversial speakers from appearing on campuses or shouting them down when they did: Bell Curve author Charles Murray at Middlebury College; DailyWire editor Ben Shapiro at University of Wisconsin-Madison; actor Gavin McInnes at New York University; white nationalist Richard Spencer at Texas A&M; andprovocateur Ann Coulter at Berkeley.

This reflects a fundamental lack of understanding of how the First Amendment functions.

The only effective answer to a bad idea is a good idea. Responding to speech with speech works. Protest is entirely appropriate, ifpeaceful.

But trying to silence words with which we disagree even if we find them despicable will backfire.

Jack McElroy is executive editor of the News Sentinel and can be reached at editor@knoxnews.com.

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First Amendment protects us all by sticking up for the despicable - Knoxville News Sentinel

A judge ruled on Thursday, June 1, 2017 that a case challenging a Burlington housing policy can proceed. JESS ALOE/FREE PRESS

184 Church Street in Burlington on Wednesday, April 6, 2016.(Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)Buy Photo

A federal judge ruled a Burlington man's lawsuit charging the city with violating his First Amendment rights can proceed.

Joseph Montagno filed the lawsuit last fall claiming the city violated his rights by pressuring his landlord to evict him for calling 911 too many times.

The ruling, issued on Thursday by Judge Christina Reiss, mostly denied the city's request to dismiss the case.

In the original complaint, Montagno's American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, Jay Diaz, argued that his client's right to free speech had been "chilled" by the city's actions.

More: Lawsuit: Man evicted for calling BPD 'too frequently'

If his factual allegations are true, Reisswrote, "he has plausibly alleged a retaliation claim."

The judge dismissed several other parts of the lawsuit. Eileen Blackwood, Burlington's City Attorney, said she was pleased that the court had narrowed the issues.

She also said it was early in the proceeding.

"Motions to dismiss are often not granted because the court has to give the benefit of the doubt to the plaintiff," she said.

Burlington city attorney Eileen Blackwood.(Photo: KEVIN HURLEY/for the FREE PRESS, FILE)

Montagno claimed in the lawsuitthat the Burlington Police Department and Code Enforcement office kept track of his calls to the police department, and then pressured his landlord into evicting him.

"We're very pleased with the ruling," said Jay Diaz, Montagno's American Civil Liberties Union lawyer. "Mr. Montagno is looking forward to pressing his case against the city."

Jay Diaz, staff attorney with the Vermont ACLU, in February 2015.(Photo: KEVIN HURLEY/for the Free Press)

Diaz said his client was able to eventually secure housing in Burlington after being evicted from his Church Street apartment, with the help of several local nonprofits such as Vermont Legal Aid and Champlain Housing Trust.

He said one goal of the lawsuit was to end the alleged policy, as well as to encourage the city to focus more on supporting people who need help.

"They were among the most vulnerable Burlington residents," he said about the residents of the Church Street building where Montagno lived. "They were low-income, many of them had disabilities."

Blackwood said she does not believe that Burlington hasa "caller retaliation policy."

"We don't think there was any attempt to chill First Amendment rights," she said.

Contact Jess Aloe at 802-660-1874 or jaloe@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @jess_aloe

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First Amendment case against Burlington can proceed - BurlingtonFreePress.com

The essence of journalism is supposed to be rooted in fact based objectivity. The Missoulian and Gazettes' 24th-hour reversal of their Gianforte endorsement is the equivalent of Dick Cheney removing himself from the tip of the spear that was meant to kill LGBT rights only after his daughter came out.

Now, more than ever, the First Amendment must be utilized as of one of the pillars this country was built upon in order for our democracy to endure the whims of awfulness humanity is frequently compelled to act upon. Now is not the time to use the The First Amendment, and the journalistic integrity heavily implied therein, as a crutch used to limp into our common future.

If all it takes for an entity like The Missoulian to find their moral compass is to have their agenda, or in this case their endorsement, come back bite them in the butt, and hurt one of their own, only serves to highlight their bias, and make it more transparent to how far removed they are from objectivity and truth.

Journalists are supposed to not only weather, but be at home in the eye of the storm.

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First Amendment must remain as a pillar of country - The Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler speaks during a press conference on January 17, 2017 in Portland. Don Ryan / AP

"It may be tempting to shut down speech we disagree with, but once we allow the government to decide what we can say, see, or hear, or who we can gather with, history shows us that the most marginalized will be disproportionately censored and punished for unpopular speech," said the organization in a statement immediately following Wheeler's call to block the parades.

"The mayor is not just anyone on the street, he's a government official who has to uphold the Constitution," said Mathew dos Santos, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. "And he's not doing that," he said.

"Portland has a proud history of protest. I am a firm supporter of the First Amendment, no matter the views expressed. I believe we had a case to make about the threats to public safety posed by this rally at this place and at this time. My job is to protect the safety of everyone... protesters, counter-protesters, and bystanders alike," said Wheeler in a

Alt-right groups have scheduled a "Trump Free Speech Rally," on June 4. A "March against Sharia" event was scheduled for June 10 but organizers decided to cancel the rally in Portland and move it to Seattle instead.

Organizers felt the city was no longer safe for them.

"Due to Mayor Wheeler's inflammatory comments and what we feel is an incitement of violence, he has shamefully endangered every scheduled participant. Consequently, in order to ensure the safety of those who had planned on attending, we have taken the decision to cancel the Portland March Against Sharia," wrote the organization planning the march in a

June 4th parade organizer Joey Gibson said the mayor "needs to sit down and take a minute and listen," and feels that he is trying to "pin" Jeremy Christian on his movement.

Christian, who was arraigned on

The City of Portland has already

Wheeler also urged the federal government to follow in his footsteps and revoke federal permits issued to the group.

But the U.S. General Services Administration, charged with issuing permits, announced on Wednesday that it would allow the parades.

"All rules and regulations were followed by the applicant for the permit, including the timeframe for review. Since the permit was lawfully obtained to assemble at this federal location, GSA has no basis to revoke the permit," the agency said in a statement.

Revoking permits amounts to government suppression of speech, which has always been illegal, dos Santos said. You cannot withhold permits based on people's viewpoints, he said.

The case is a mirror image of another First Amendment battle out near Chicago 40 years ago.

In 1977, a neo-Nazi organization chose to stage their parade in the suburban Chicago town of Skokie, which at the time was home to thousands of Holocaust survivors.

Parade goers were slated to wear Nazi uniforms and emulate salutes and anti-Jewish chants from Nazi Germany.

Outraged community members tried to put a stop to the parade by using the same arguments set forth by Wheeler. The group said the parade promotes hate speech that would inflict emotional distress upon survivors of the Holocaust.

A girl leaves a message at a makeshift memorial for two men on May 29, 2017 in Portland. The men were killed on a commuter train while trying to stop another man from harassing two young women who appeared to be Muslim. Terray Sylvester / Reuters

Ultimately the Nazi group, represented by the ACLU, won at the Supreme Court level and was legally allowed to march under the first amendment. The group ended up holding a rally downtown instead.

"Part of the problem with hate speech is that it's in the eye of the beholder," said Geoffrey Stone, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. "There is no neutral way to decide what hate speech is and courts will not even attempt it," he said.

The alt-right group has not made any indication that they are planning to incite imminent danger or violence during the parade, which may be questionable under the law, he said. "The idea that you can ban speech because it's offensive or may cause anxiety is not consistent with the first amendment."

Thus far, the alt-right group has not brought suit against the city for revoking their permits, but if the situation does arise, it's an open and shut case, Stone said.

"It's inconceivable to me that a court would uphold the mayor's argument," he said. "This is long standing, well-settled law, and the mayor has it completely wrong," he said.

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Does the First Amendment Protect Alt-Right Parades in Portland? - NBCNews.com

Student journalists and their teachers and advisers just gained greater First Amendment protections under a new Vermont law.

The Vermont Press Association is pleased the Legislature moved quickly this year to provide proper First Amendment safeguards for student-journalists and their advisers, said association President Adam Silverman, an editor and writer at the Burlington Free Press. School superintendents, principals and other administrators should refrain from censoring student publications. That is why there is a First Amendment.

The Vermont law, recently signed by Gov. Phil Scott, protects student journalists against retaliation for writing articles that address controversial political issues.The bill also blocks retaliation against teachers and advisers for articles written by students.

Silverman said the law places speech in journalistic publications on par with students rights to speak on their T-shirts, leaflets, flyers, armbands and in all other parts of the school day.

The new statute, along with an unrelated shield law bill, which also has been signed by Gov. Scott, were the two top priorities for the press association going into the legislative session, Silverman said.

Student-journalists representing Burlington High, Bellows Free Academy-St. Albans, Woodstock Union and the University of Vermont were among witnesses who testified in favor of the new law.

A noted First Amendment law school professor, a longtime award-winning journalist and a university newspaper adviser also affirmed the need for the legislation in Vermont.

The Vermont students testified about some pushback they received at their schools when trying to cover stories that had been reported by local professional media outlets.The stories included reports on an impasse being declared for teacher negotiations, a study of handicapped accessibility in school buildings, sexting cases by students and local rallies outside schools for Black Lives Matter.

The Senate Education Committee and the full chamber passed the bill unanimously. The bill got mired in the House for two months before the education and judiciary committees considered it. The House eventually gave the bill the green light.

Scott met with some of the witnesses for a ceremonial bill signing Thursday in South Burlington. He told the group that journalists play an important role in society and also said it was important for young Vermonters to be active in politics.

If we want to change the direction of this country or this state,you have to get involved, right?You have to get there, you have to step up, Scott said. Having the press be able to tell the stories without being victimized is important in keeping politicians honest.

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New state law protects First Amendment rights - Stowe Today

Quad-City Times Editorial Page Editor Jon Alexander was recognized with a national award for editorials written in 2016 pushing for government transparency.

He received the APME First Amendment Award, competing against work by newspapers nationwide in the 40,000 to 149,999 circulation category. His editorials, published in early 2016, pushed against the practice of closed-door meetings by Davenport City Council, which are now open to the media and the public.

The 2017 Associated Press Media Editors Awards were given to watchdog journalism that saved lives, exposed bias, held government officials accountable and shed light on hidden practices.

This is a huge honor to be recognized by our peers on a national stage for doing what I believe to be one of the key roles of newspapers, to advocate for our readers, Quad-City Times Executive Editor Autumn Phillips said.

Alexander will receive the award during a reception in October in Washington, D.C., at APMEs annual News Leadership Conference.

Other recipients of the First Amendment Award this year were The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier, in the 150,000 and over category and the Peoria Journal Star, in the 39,999 and under circulation category.

The Chicago Tribune earned the grand prize in Public Service for Dangerous Doses, which exposed pharmacies that were dispensing drug combinations that could cause harm or death.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune and Springfield (Ill.) State Journal-Register also received top honors in Public Service.

The annual APME contest honors excellence and innovation in journalism and reflects the Associated Press Media Editors mission of fostering newsroom leaders, empowering journalists to succeed and cultivating ideas that work. Teams of judges are comprised of APME national board members and top editors at The Associated Press. Phillips is on the board of APME but was not a judge in the First Amendment contest.

"I believe quality journalism and the commitment to the communities we serve is central to our newspaper's success," said Publisher Deb Anselm. "A big part of that is to watch out for this community by exercising our First Amendment Rights."

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Quad-City Times wins national First Amendment Award - Quad City Times