Newsgathering

The singling out of credentialed journalists in an attempt to separate them from the news events unfolding at the police disbanding of the Occupy Wall Street protests is outrageous and unacceptable, according to Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Executive Director Lucy A. Dalglish.

“It’s extremely disturbing that credentialed reporters would be singled out in a roundup aimed at preventing them from witnessing police activity at the disbanding of the Occupy Wall Street camp,” Dalglish said. “What country are we living in?

Enforcement of Federal Communications Commission policy regulating indecent programming on the public airwaves severely restrains the ability of broadcast journalists to report on matters of public interest and concern, The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press arguedin a friend-of-the-court brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press will co-sponsor the Law School for Digital Journalists at Harvard University later this month in conjunction with the Online News Association’s 2011 annual conference at the Boston Marriott Copley Place.

An interactive reference to the myriad legal issues specifically facing reporters who are working online has joined the library of free, online media law guides available on the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press website.

The Digital Journalist’s Legal Guide is designed to assist anyone who is disseminating news online, from an independent blogger to a reporter for a major media outlet, as well as media lawyers active in this area.

Topic areas include:

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press urged a federal appeals court this week to order a federal trial court to reconsider its decision that a photographer's First Amendment rights were not violated when she was not allowed to photograph the roundup of wild horses on federal land in Nevada.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and six news industry associations have filed a friend-of-the-court brief challenging the Illinois Eavesdropping Act, arguing that it is so broad that it inhibits the basic right to gather information.