• Mike D: Fighting for Your Right to Get Online

    Amy Kroin
    February 15, 2012

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission offered no bonbons and forget-me-nots for AT&T this Valentine’s Day. On Tuesday, the SEC told AT&T and other telecoms that they must include a resolution supporting wireless Net Neutrality in annual shareholder ballots. The SEC found no merit in AT&T’s claim that such a resolution would “interfere with its network management practices and seriously impair its ability to provide wireless broadband service to its customers.”

  • Could the Latest News Corp. Arrests Lead to a U.S. Investigation?

    Amy Kroin
    February 14, 2012

    The new year is not off to the rosiest of starts for News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch. On Saturday five senior journalists at his London tabloid the Sun were arrested and charged with bribing public officials for information. This spate of arrests is the latest development in Scotland Yard’s ongoing investigation into News Corp.’s ever-expanding corruption scandal, which led to last summer’s closing of the tabloid News of the World, home to phone hacking and other underhanded approaches to sleuthing the news.

  • It's Up to Us to Protect the First Amendment

    Josh Stearns
    February 9, 2012

    What happens when a journalist is arrested? How do we account for the stories that don’t get told, or the issues that don’t get covered because the press was restricted or behind bars? How do we measure the intimidation journalists feel, and the chill that police intervention places on freedom of the press? One gauge might be the U.S.’s recent drop in global press freedom rankings, down to number 47 worldwide.

  • Obama Joins the Democracy Fire Sale

    Timothy Karr
    February 7, 2012

    President Obama succumbed late Monday to the dark logic of the Super PACs, instructing top West Wing staffers to help raise money for the so-called "independent" groups that have been successful in picking winners and losers thus far in 2012.

  • The SOPA/PIPA Money Trail

    Josh Levy
    February 7, 2012

    Before the Web blacked out to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — the Internet-censorship bills that faced massive opposition online — there was another SOPA blackout. This one came courtesy of the TV news networks, which almost uniformly ignored SOPA and PIPA until it was impossible not to.

    A Media Matters report showed that in the run-up to Jan. 18, when Wikipedia, Google, Reddit and other big sites joined millions of Internet users in one of the biggest online protests to date, only CNN mentioned SOPA and/or PIPA in its nightly news coverage.

  • The Onslaught Is Coming to a TV Near You

    Timothy Karr
    February 6, 2012

    If Minnesotans flip on their TVs right now, they're likely to see at least one — a political ad slinging mud at a presidential candidate.

  • Censorship U?

    Josh Levy
    February 3, 2012

    Great news. Last night, thanks to the rapid response of Free Press activists, Arizona State University lifted its blocking of student access to Change.org.

    We hope ASU understands that it must put the free speech rights of its students first. Free Press has asked the university to scrutinize its Internet-use policies to ensure they don’t compromise these online freedoms. 

  • As Pressure Builds, Some Cities Respond to Journalist Arrests

    Josh Stearns
    February 2, 2012

    After arresting more than 20 journalists in New York City, and threatening press in various other ways, the New York City Police Department has admitted that it has reprimanded only two of its officers for their actions.

  • Tucson Media Monopoly Takes Root

    Libby Reinish
    February 1, 2012

    UPDATE: Today marks the beginning of a local media monopoly in Tucson, Ariz. Exploiting loopholes in the Federal Communications Commission’s ownership rules, Raycom Media has taken control of three local stations: KMSB, KOLD and KTTU. The stations are now co-branded as “Tucson News Now” and they operate out of the same studio (about 40 employees lighter than before).

  • Public Media: Still on the Chopping Block

    Amy Kroin
    February 1, 2012

    Last November Free Press released On the Chopping Block: State Budget Battles and the Future of Public Media, an inventory of dramatic state-level funding cuts to public broadcasting. Our report, co-authored by Josh Stearns and Mike Soha, documents how state support for public broadcasting has plunged since the economy took a nosedive in 2008. What’s more, the report notes that politics — not financial considerations — have driven much of this budget cutting.

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