Free Republic

A federal appellate court ruled Friday that the author of a blog post deserves the same treatment in a defamation case as "institutional media." The three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held unanimously that there is no difference between a journalist for a media outlet and another speaker when it comes to First Amendment protections. The case stems from a series of blog posts published in 2010 by a woman accusing a financial advice firm of fraud and corruption. One of the firm's principals was appointed as the bankruptcy trustee to a company that had misappropriated client...

The New York Times had a reporter talking to attackers on the ground during the Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans in September of 2012, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, and may know the identity of some the murderers and perpetrators. David Kirkpatrick, the Times reporter who wrote the story that forced the paper's Editorial page editor to defensively declare on Monday that it has not chosen to endorse Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, said that the paper had a reporter on the ground who was witnessing the attacks.

Cairo (AFP) - Egyptian secret police have arrested an award-winning Australian journalist and an Egyptian reporter for the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera channel suspected of illegally broadcasting news harming "domestic security," the interior ministry said. The arrests come amid a widening crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, which the military-installed government declared a "terrorist organisation" last week. Al-Jazeera confirmed the arrests, and said police also detained a producer and a cameraman. Officers of the National Security service raided the broadcaster's makeshift bureau at a Cairo hotel on Sunday, arresting two of the journalists and confiscating their equipment, said...

On Thursday, Fox News’ Ed Henry tweeted that MSNBC hosts Ed Schultz and Lawrence O’Donnell, as well as Ezra Klein of the Washington Post and Fox News’ Juan Williams, had been invited for a private off-the-record chat with President Obama. Obama’s signature program, Obamacare, has been flailing in the press for weeks, and Obama apparently believes that it is about time to reshift the narrative: Juan Williams refused to describe what Obama himself said, but he did state that the White House is in “full fight mode over the Affordable Healthcare Act right now.” He added, “They feel as if...

Rather than allow journalists to cover events as they happen at the White House, President Obama issues “propaganda” photos of himself to be used in all media stories, instead. And the Associated Press is not happy about it. According to American Overlook, Santiago Lyon, AP director of photography, said that no one has real access to President Obama. The only time photojournalists are allowed inside to cover an event is when “foreign dignitaries” are visiting Washington. Since he first took office in 2009, President Obama has been anything but open in regards to photographers taking his picture. Since then, the...

Two French radio journalists were killed by gunmen in northern Mali on Saturday shortly after being abducted in the town of Kidal, French and Malian officials said. The French government confirmed that 58-year old Claude Verlon and Ghislaine Dupont, 51, both journalists at RFI radio, had been found dead.

President Obama's election was supposed to usher in an era of racial unity greater than any Americans had previously experienced. By making the historic move to place the first black president in the White House, Americans signified that they were ready to move beyond the racial conflicts of the past and move forward, arm-in-arm. At least that's what we were told. So much for that. In the last two weeks, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, official hot-air-trial balloon for the Obama administration's public relations strategy, has played the race card incessantly. First, he proclaimed that Republican New Jersey senatorial candidate Steve Lonegan...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. government's aggressive prosecution of leaks and efforts to control information are having a chilling effect on journalists and government whistle-blowers, according to a report released Thursday on U.S. press freedoms under the Obama administration. The Committee to Protect Journalists conducted its first examination of U.S. press freedoms amid the Obama administration's unprecedented number of prosecutions of government sources and seizures of journalists' records. Usually the group focuses on advocating for press freedoms abroad. Leonard Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post, wrote the 30-page analysis entitled "The Obama Administration and the Press."...

Leonard Downie, a former executive editor of The Washington Post, is the Weil family professor of journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. This article is based on his report “The Obama Administration and the Press,” forthcoming Thursday from the Committee to Protect Journalists. In the Watergate era, the Nixon administration’s telephone wiretaps were the biggest concern for journalists and sources worried about government surveillance. That was one of the reasons why Bob Woodward met with FBI official Mark Felt (a.k.a. “Deep Throat”) in an underground parking garage in Arlington, and why he and Carl...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has been working on a bill to shield reporters from heavy-handed federal officials who seek to use their power to uncover information about whistle-blowers and leakers. Given the Obama Department of Justice's recent adventures in surveilling reporters' phone logs, you might think that for her trouble, Feinstein would be the object of much praise and many hosannas from the ink-stained-wretch community. But no, you can file this one under: No good deed goes unpunished. DiFi, you see, made the mistake of insisting that a proposed reporters' privilege law, the Free Flow of Information Act, apply only...

Time managing editor Rick Stengel's decision to join the Obama administration is just the latest example of a new trend among mainstream media journalists who are making it official by officially joining the Obama administration. Stengel, who is joining the State Department, is just one of 15 (or 19) who have given up a career in journalism to join Obama's crusade to fundamentally transform America:

It has now been an entire year since Al-Hurra correspondent Bashar Fahmi, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin, and freelancer Austin Tice, of the United States, went missing in Syria. But the recent liberation of two freelance journalists held for months gives us some reason to hope. Fahmi disappeared during a firefight in Aleppo on August 20, 2012, along with Turkish cameraman Cüneyt Ünal. The same day, Japanese journalist Mika Yamamoto was killed in Aleppo. Ünal was released by the Syrian government in November 2012, but there has still been no word on Fahmi's fate.... snip... But two abductees have recently...

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C. and President Obama will attempt to channel MLK but will ultimately fail. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man who believed in uniting people, not dividing them and for peaceful, non-violent protest. Obama serves as a stark contrast through his actions.Where Martin Luther King sought to unite, Obama seeks to divide. Where King desired to raise all people up, Obama desires to keep them down. MLK saw the inherent dignity of man, while Obama only sees a serf who needs the State to...

AOL Inc. is laying off up to half the workforce at its Patch local news sites and shuttering or consolidating roughly 150 of the 900 sites while looking for partners for others. Up to 500 of Patch's 1,000 employees will go in the layoffs, which started on Friday with 350 people getting pink slips. In all, the layoffs amount to about 9 percent of AOL's total workforce of 5,500....

Edward Snowden accused the National Security Agency of targeting reporters who wrote critically about the government after the 9/11 attacks and warned it was “unforgivably reckless” for journalists to use unencrypted email messages when discussing sensitive matters. Snowden said in an interview with the New York Times Magazine published Tuesday that he came to trust Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who, along with Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, helped report his disclosure of secret surveillance programs, because she herself had been targeted by the NSA. “Laura and [Guardian reporter] Glenn [Greenwald] are among the few who reported fearlessly on controversial topics...

Maybe it was the upbeat mood of a man about to go on vacation, but President Obama seemed feistier than usual in making the case today for his policies on surveillance, health care and immigration reform. During his second term, Obama has sometimes seemed back on his heels in defending his policies against Republican attack, but that wasn’t the case in his White House news conference Friday. He argued for what he called, at one point, “common sense” solutions, with seeming confidence that he has the upper hand politically against the GOP. Obama’s attempts to hold the middle ground, and...

Journalists responded with shock, awe and a predictable amount of snark to the news that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos had bought The Washington Post. The news was announced Monday afternoon. Bezos himself, rather than his company, bought the Washington newspaper for roughly $250 million.

When I first saw the KTVU video in which anchorwoman Tori Campbell gave the fictional names of the Asiana Airlines pilots -- Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding Ow -- I laughed. I laughed out loud, and then I watched it again. After days of watching the painful news about the July 6 crash that killed three and left many wounded, it felt good to laugh. I didn't think that the gaffe had racist intent. I figured it was just a puerile newsroom prank that somehow made it on the air. I never...

The Michael Hastings Car Crash: No Skids Marks, A Flying Engine And “Boston Brakes” In cases such as the highly suspicious and tragic car crash/explosion that killed celebrated investigative journalist Michael Hastings, I try to reserve commentary for a little bit to let facts emerge following the initial speculative flurry. Particularly when it involves a journalist with whom I am only slightly familiar. I think we can all agree at this point that based on what has come forward in the past several weeks it is more than likely Mr. Hastings was murdered.

Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst told HotAir's Ed Morrissey that his office received reports that reporters were actively encouraging and rallying pro-abortion protesters during State Sen. Wendy Davis' fillibuster last week. "We have reports and I have my staff taking a look at the video, the internet video that we keep, we store, on the proceedings that evening and if I find as I've been told examples of the media waving and trying to inflame the crowd, incite them in the direction of a riot, I'm going to take action against them. That is wrong. That's inciting a riot. That...