Author Archive | Victoria Ekstrand

Cleary Competition Winners Announced

Elias Wright

The UNC Center for Media Law and Policy is thrilled to announce the winners of the second annual James R. Cleary Prize for students who wrote the best published scholarly articles on media law and policy related topics in 2019.

This year’s first place winner is Elias Wright, a 2020 graduate of Fordham University School of Law, for his article, “The Future of Facial Recognition Is Not Fully Known: Developing Privacy and Security Regulatory Mechanisms for Facial Recognition in the Retail Sector,” which was published in the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal. The second place winner is Sarah Koslov, a 2020 graduate of Georgetown Law School. Her article, “Incitement and the Geopolitical Influence of Facebook Content Moderation,” was published in the Georgetown Law Technology Review. The third place winner is David A. Fischer, a 2020 graduate of Columbia Law School, for his article, “Dron’t Stop Me Now: Prioritizing Drone Journalism in Commercial Drone Regulation,” which was published in the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts. Wright will receive $1000;  Koslov will receive $500; and Fischer will receive $250.

Elias Wright is currently working as a law clerk at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP while applying for admission to the New York Bar. His research focuses on the intersection of communications technology, law, and culture, and he is interested in how legal institutions negotiate and are transformed by sociotechnical processes.

While at Fordham, Wright served as a Project Fellow for the Center on Law and Information Policy and studied Information Law with Professor Olivier Sylvain, who was his advisor on the article. Wright was a member of the Fordham Law Review and served as a judicial intern for United States Magistrate Judge Leda Dunn Wettre of the District of New Jersey. He grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, and completed his undergraduate degree in Art History and Religion at Oberlin College in 2014.

Sarah Koslov

At Georgetown Law, Sarah Koslov was a member of the inaugural cohort of the Technology Law Scholars program. She served as the Senior Solicitations Editor for the Georgetown Law Technology Review and was a Public Interest Fellow achieving Special Pro Bono Pledge Recognition. Koslov’s interest in public policy led her to internships with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, Senate Committee on Finance, and California Office of the Attorney General. She was also a Research Assistant for the Institute for Technology Law & Policy, where she focused on algorithmic fairness and disability rights.

Koslov graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina in 2014. Prior to law school, she worked as a policy analyst for a research center in Washington, D.C., focusing on state Medicaid programs and public health insurance policy.

David A. Fischer

David A. Fischer was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and the Executive Notes Editor of Volume 43 of the Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts.  While attending Columbia Law School, Fischer served as a research assistant for Professor Suzanne B. Goldberg and volunteered to teach Constitutional Law to high school students as a part of Columbia’s High School Law Institute.

During law school, Fischer was a summer associate with Latham & Watkins in New York, interned for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York in the Criminal Division’s National Security and Cybercrime Section, and for the Hon. Eric N. Vitaliano of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Prior to attending law school, Fischer worked in marketing for Viacom Media Networks. He attended Cornell University, where he graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in English. He resides in New York City.

You can read more about the Cleary Prize competition here. Please check the Center’s blog for an announcement of next year’s deadline to apply.

Congratulations to the winners!

 

 

 

 

1

First Amendment Resources for Journalists

With civil unrest occurring across the country, the First Amendment Legal Network (FELN), of which we are a part, is sharing a few resources for media covering these events.

Attorneys at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) are also monitoring its legal hotline for journalists, in case reporters have questions about their legal rights at protests, or need help finding an attorney. There are three ways to reach the hotline: rcfp.org/hotline, 800-336-4243, hotline@rcfp.org. The Student Press Law Center also has a hotline for student journalists.

 

0

UNC’s Dual Degree Students in Media Law Land Top Internships

Ashley Fox

Although COVID-19 has changed summer plans for some of our dual degree students, UNC’s MA/JD students in media law often intern at some of the nation’s top media organizations, think-tanks, and government agencies. These internships give students a chance to see the media law principles they’re studying in action and also practice and share what they’re learning with these organizations.

Last summer, Ashley Fox, a UNC MA/JD student and fellow with the new UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP), interned in the Office of Information Policy (OIP) at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.  The OIP oversees federal agency compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. The office handles FOIA requests submitted by the public, adjudicates appeals from initial FOIA requests, publishes public guidance on FOIA, conducts training for FOIA practitioners in other government agencies, and reviews annual reports from those other agencies.

At OIP, Fox primarily worked with the Appeals team, where she reviewed FOIA appeals submitted by the public. She also helped to update the office’s guidance on certain provisions of FOIA and reviewed proposed legislation for potential effects on FOIA.

During her time at OIP, the U. S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, which clarified which information held by the government qualifies as “confidential.” If the information is confidential it does not need to be released under FOIA, the Court ruled. As a result, Fox helped draft new guidance for federal agencies on how to apply FOIA’s confidential information exemption.

Fox said the MA/JD program at UNC helped prepare her for her internship because it gave her important background knowledge about FOIA and the importance of government transparency.

“Knowing the importance of laws like FOIA and the government’s interest in protecting certain information helped me appreciate the work conducted by the attorneys in the office when they’re applying FOIA to decide what information to release and what information should be withheld under the law,” she said.

Fox said she saw that the OIP valued government transparency. “The staff and attorneys at OIP who are making decisions under FOIA really do want to get it right. Each day, they’re trying to balance the government’s desire––and sometimes need––to protect certain information with the public’s interest in knowing what their government is doing.”

Fox will intern this summer for a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. That internship will begin virtually in June.

Isabela Palmieri

Isabela Palmieri, a first-year MA/JD student at UNC, interned at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) in Philadelphia last summer. FIRE is a nonprofit organization that defends students’ and faculty’s First Amendment rights in higher education. Additionally, FIRE educates students, faculty, alumni, trustees, and the public about the threats to these rights.

During her internship at FIRE, Palmieri worked on policy recommendations for colleges and universities. She said that one of her favorite projects was working on a model policy about how universities allocate student fees. The policy focused on ensuring that public colleges and universities were designating fees in a constitutional manner.

At FIRE, Palmieri said she learned more about many different free speech issues in higher education, including the firing of professors for their views, revoking speaker invitations, and lack of recognition for or equal treatment of certain student organizations.

Palmieri said that the UNC MA/JD program in media law was great preparation for her internship at FIRE. She said she felt the program gave her an advantage and helped her stand out in the applicant pool.

“In law school you learn about broad First Amendment ideologies and how the law came to be what it is today, but working at FIRE made me see how those ideals affect higher education – from what student organizations should be recognized on campus, to what information students are allowed or not allowed to learn,” she said.  “It made me realize how much First Amendment values influence our higher education institutions and how important it is to craft laws that protect both education and free speech.”

Palmieri was scheduled to intern at Pepper Hamilton in Philadelphia, but that was cancelled due to COVID-19. Instead, she is taking a summer class and working on media law research, including her work on Anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions laws. Since 2015, twenty-seven states have enacted legislation prohibiting the boycotting of Israel by any entity procuring a government contract, called Anti-BDS laws. The laws raise several First Amendment concerns. Palmieri’s work in this area resulted in a second place student award in the Law Division of the Southeast Regional Colloquium of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).

To support students who seek these summer experiences, the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy administers a grant program to assist students who want experience in the areas of media law and media policy, including working at media organizations, nonprofits, law firms, advocacy groups, and research centers. The summer grant program provides funds to students taking unpaid or low-paying jobs in the fields of media law or media policy.

-Kriste Patrow, UNC Media Law Ph.D. Candidate

0

Cleary Student Paper Competition Honors Attorney James Cleary, a Passionate Supporter of Journalism

This year marks the second year of the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy’s James R. Cleary Student Paper Competition. Cash prizes are awarded to the student authors of published papers that most creatively and convincingly propose solutions to significant problems in the field of media law and policy, including First Amendment speech and press issues.

The competition was made possible by James Cleary’s daughter, Dr. Johanna Cleary, a Ph.D. graduate of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism Media and a former Park Fellow. Kriste Patrow, a UNC Ph.D. candidate in the School, asked Dr. Cleary about her Dad and his legacy.

Q: So, can you start by telling me a little bit about the work your father did?

Cleary: Well, my Dad was in a general practice most of his life, but he always had a great interest in and passion for the media. In fact, the way he paid his way through his undergraduate degree and a lot of his law school expenses was by working in radio.

Dad, as a teenager, began working as a radio announcer in the 1940s. He worked at some smaller stations in Alabama and then a featured spot on one of the major stations in Birmingham, Alabama. His radio show, at the time he was doing it, was actually the number-one rated program in the country. He was part of a group that put the first television station on the air in Huntsville, Alabama, which was very much a growing city at the time. And he also was part of a partnership that put together the second newspaper in Huntsville.

So, he had this great love for media and a great interest in it. He also understood the importance of law to our society, and so he ultimately went on to law school and was a practicing attorney for about 56 years.

Q: What kind of work did he do as an attorney?

Cleary: Well, because my Dad was in a general practice, his media specific work was geographically determined.  Basically he was admitted to the group that could practice before the Federal Communications Commission. He did a lot of the legal work in terms of setting up the ownership for those stations, which is a pretty complicated process. So, from a very hands-on standpoint he was very committed to the importance of the media, and I think philosophically, the importance of the media to democracy. I think Dad really did believe in the Fourth Estate — that there is an important role in the press to play in preserving a democracy for us.

Q: So, he believed in the media’s role as a watchdog on government?

Cleary: The important thing that my father really believed in was an informed and educated population – the idea Aristotle had that informed people can make good decisions for themselves. That being informed just doesn’t happen by magic. There is a lot of work that goes into that: Work both on the part of the media and the part of the public, the consuming public.

Q: Can you tell me a bit about what inspired you to donate to the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy in particular?

Cleary: I am a product of the doctoral program there, and I was very fortunate to receive one of the Park Fellowships. So, I was very grateful to the School and to the Park family for having that opportunity. I could have gone to any number of different initiatives, but I knew the national reputation of the media law program there. I knew the individuals involved with the Center’s leadership there and certainly have the highest of opinions of them.

The Center was kind of getting up and running really at the time that my Dad visited UNC when I graduated. So, he had an idea of the quality of the program there. I think he highly approved of what was being done there and where they were going.

The importance of the press to our democracy just can’t be overstated and neither can the role that media law plays in making sure that stays the case. I mean, this isn’t just something that happens by luck and chance.

So, it was a collection of a lot of things. It just seemed to be the perfect match. I’m very pleased that they had the idea of creating this award in honor of my father. That’s very meaningful.

Q: What are your hopes for the Cleary Award moving forward?

Cleary:  That’s a good question. I think people are looking toward the emerging scholars to say “Where do we go? What are the things we need to know? What are the rules that we need to come up with? Where do we leave it alone? Where do we need to roll up our sleeves and get involved?” This time, more so than any I remember, students have the opportunity to shape the future. My hope for the award is that it will recognize the impact that student scholars are already having and encourage the potential they have to shape, certainly the media field, but really our democracy to a large extent.

0

Tackling Race, Journalism and Viral Images in “Confederates”

“I think that people in this country – the people of good will, anyway – are aching for a real conversation about these very questions and I think maybe we can help them, you and I.”

So says Will, the main character and young black journalist of Suzanne Bradbeer’s award-winning play, CONFEDERATES, to his friend and source, Maddie, after she shares with him a controversial photo of her with a Confederate flag. In this gripping one-act play, Will tries to persuade Maddie, the white daughter of a presidential candidate, that he can be trusted to tell the story of her soon-to-be viral photo, released in an act of revenge by Maddie’s former boyfriend.

On Friday, Jan. 31, the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy, the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, the UNC Department of Dramatic Art and PlayMakers hosted a reading of CONFEDERATES for about 50 guests in the Freedom Forum Conference Center, including students, faculty, friends of PlayMakers, and the playwright, Suzanne Bradbeer. The play was followed by a panel discussion about the themes in the play with Bradbeer, News & Observer political reporter Will Doran and senior journalism major Elliott Millner.

For the Center, the play was an amazing moment to explore a whole host of ethical and potential legal challenges faced by today’s journalists: how to handle sources we know; how to work in a field that faces tremendous financial pressures; how we talk or don’t talk about race in our work; how “cancel culture” derails conversations about our partisan times; and how the release of controversial images online can wreck lives, encourage death threats, and spark lawsuits.

The conversations were immeasurably bolstered by the performances of Vivienne Benesch, PlayMakers’ artistic director (Stephanie); Brandon Herman St. Clair Haynes from UNC’s Professional Actors Training Program (Will); and Tori Jewell from UNC’s Professional Actors Training Program (Maddie). The reading was produced by Alejandro Rodriguez, PlayMakers’ associate artistic director, and directed by New Jersey actor and director Laura Ekstrand.

The panel discussion that followed addressed how the Internet continues to change the way we work as journalists. The panelists tackled the challenges of writing about race and racial tensions in this moment, as well as the delicate “grey area” of dealing with sources we know.

The evening was a reminder of the power of theater to encourage conversations that are often difficult to have and bring big issues to the personal level, where we can feel them as well as think about them.

(Photos by Lois Boynton)

0