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Content related to the Center for Media Law and Policy’s activities and people.

This First Amendment Day, fight for the free flow of information

By on September 23, 2013 in Center for Media Law and Policy, First Amendment, Journalism, Transparency

UNC will hold its fifth annual First Amendment Day Sept. 24, a celebration of our rights to speak, publish, worship, assemble and protest without government intervention. It’s easy to celebrate free expression. It’s sometimes harder to notice when that freedom is being eroded by the government.

In the year since First Amendment Day 2012, we’ve learned that our First Amendment rights — particularly the freedom of the press — have been compromised in the name of security. In May, the Associated Press and Fox News revealed that the Justice Department had secretly seized phone records and searched emails between reporters and sources in an effort to investigate leaks. In July, New York Times reporter James Risen lost an appeal in federal court challenging a Justice Department subpoena ordering him to testify and reveal his confidential sources in a criminal prosecution. In the July trial of Private First Class Bradley Manning, the government argued that publishing leaks to the general public could constitute “aiding and abetting the enemy” under the Espionage Act. And some reporters say that their ability to promise their sources confidentiality has been jeopardized by the mass surveillance of Americans’ phone call and email data.

This year, First Amendment Day is more than a celebration. It’s a reminder that we have to constantly fight for the free flow of information — in the courts, in newsrooms, in Congress, in our state and at our school.

This year’s keynote address by Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, will explore the Obama Administration’s relationship with the media. “If there was ever any doubt that a war on leaks could not be conducted without a war on the press and the public’s interest in the free flow of information, the government seems to have answered that question for us,” Brown said in a statement in May, following revelations that the Justice Department had executed a search warrant for a Fox News reporter’s emails.

A panel discussion at the UNC School of Law will focus on one possible protection for press freedom: a federal shield law that would protect reporters from having to reveal their confidential sources in a federal investigation or trial. Panelists will discuss the “Free Flow of Information Act” introduced in Congress this year, the definition of a “journalist,” and whether a federal shield law should cover bloggers, citizen journalists, and student reporters.

These are just two of many events addressing the need for education and action around First Amendment rights. For more information, check out the full schedule of events. All events are free and open to the public.

Natasha Duarte is a 2L at the University of North Carolina School of Law and a first-year master’s student at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

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FCC’s net neutrality rules head to court today

By on September 9, 2013 in Center for Media Law and Policy

Today the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC, Verizon’s challenge to the FCC’s Open Internet Rules passed in 2010. The rules are designed to prevent Internet service providers from engaging in practices that favor certain content.

While the main question in this case is whether the FCC has the authority regulate the Internet in this way, also at issue is Verizon’s novel First Amendment claim: Verizon contents that it has a First Amendment right to make decisions about how to treat Internet traffic on its network.

Read more about this case and the FCC’s Open Internet Rules here.

 

 

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Center Staffer’s Book on Shield Laws Published

By on June 24, 2013 in Center for Media Law and Policy, Journalism

shield-lawsUNC Center for Media Law and Policy Research Fellow Dean Smith is the author of a new book, “A Theory of Shield Laws: Journalists, Their Sources, and Popular Constitutionalism,” published in June by LFB Scholarly Publishing.

In his book, Smith shows how the debate over confidential sources evolved over the 115-year history of statutory shield laws, and he examines how First Amendment values drove the debate in both the courts and in legislative bodies.  He corrects some long-standing errors in the historical record.

The book also is a textual analysis of enacted and proposed shield laws and cases that tracks the evolution in thinking on the journalist-privilege issue. Finally, it is a reappraisal of Branzburg v. Hayes that suggests a fresh way of seeing that familiar Supreme Court case: as neither a beginning nor an end, but as a midway point in a conversation the courts are having with the American people.

His use of the emerging concept of popular constitutionalism as a theoretical framework led Smith to new and important insights about this area of law, including the fact that legislative and judicial decision-making were intimately intertwined. Drawing on contemporary legal scholarship, Smith used the reporter’s privilege issue to test constitutional-law scholar Michael Gerhardt’s theory of “non-judicial precedents,” and he has shown how, true to the theory, people acting outside the courts help give meaning to constitutional principles such as freedom of the press over time.

Smith earned his Ph.D. from the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2012.  He has presented award-winning papers at academic conferences and published in scholarly journals.  Smith also has written two white papers for the media law center.  The first paper summarized the findings of a center-sponsored conference on how to meet the information needs of communities. The second report described the benefits of state public affairs networks (SPAN systems) that cover state government.

Smith spent the past academic year teaching media law and newswriting at N.C. State University and High Point University. This fall he will begin work as an assistant professor at High Point University.

Before coming to UNC, Smith worked for The Charlotte Observer (1990-2004) and The (Raleigh) News & Observer (2004-2006) as a copy editor, reporter, and editor.

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Center Staffers Honored

By on April 23, 2013 in Center for Media Law and Policy

Three students who work in the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy were honored at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication’s annual awards ceremony on April 22, 2013.

Liz Woolery, a second-year Ph.D. student, won the John B. Adams Award for Excellence in Mass Communication Law.  Liz plans events and does communications work for the center

John Remensperger was honored as the year’s outstanding master’s graduate.  He designed and maintains the center’s website.

Julia Wall received the Stuart Sechriest Award, which is given to the top undergraduate photojournalism student.  She was the center’s photographer this semester.

Congratulations to our wonderful students!

 

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Final Interdisciplinary Lunch of the Year

By on April 9, 2013 in Center for Media Law and Policy, Privacy

This Friday the Center will hold its final interdisciplinary lunch of the year from noon to 1:15 p.m. in the Halls of Fame Room in Carroll Hall. The topic for this lunch is “Privacy by Design.” More information on the lunch (and how to RSVP) is available here.

If you haven’t attended one of our lunches yet, here’s what you’re missing:

The chance to meet new people
The lunches are open to Carolina graduate students and faculty. And the lunches truly are interdisciplinary. We have had students, faculty, and staff from the School of Information and Library Science, School of Law, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Department of Computer Science, Health Sciences, Office of Human Research Ethics, University Libraries, and more. If you’re looking for opportunities to collaborate across disciplines, there could not be a better place to start than with a conversation over lunch.

Exposure to new topics and new ideas
Between the suggested readings and the conversation at the lunch, attendees are guaranteed exposure to research topics and ideas they hadn’t previously considered. Though the topic for each lunch is set in advance, the conversation is only loosely structured, which means that each lunch can cover a lot of scholarly ground. At each lunch we address a different topic; over the course of a year we tackle between four and six media law and policy-related issues.

Great conversation
By the time Friday rolls around, maybe you’re feeling a little burned out and you’re looking forward to the weekend. What better way to slip into the weekend than with some great scholarly conversation? Given the interdisciplinary nature of these lunches, everyone comes at these topics from a different perspective, which makes for a fun discussion.

Input on future lunches and topics
One of the best parts of bringing together people from across the University is that everyone brings something different to the table. And when it comes to thinking about topics for future lunches, that means that you can suggest an interesting topic for our next lunch! Do you have an idea for a future topic? We are all ears.

And last, but certainly not least: Good food!
If you show up, we are happy to feed you – usually sandwiches or wraps from some of the great restaurants in Chapel Hill. Free food and interesting discussion. What could be better?

Here’s a list of topics we’ve been talking about at these lunches over the past two years:

  • Privacy and Human Subject Research
  • Wikipedia as an Example of The Promises and Pitfalls of Peer-Produced Media
  • Who Owns Research Data?
  • Studying Social Media
  • Social Networks, Privacy, and Politics
  • The Right to Be Forgotten

What are you waiting for? RSVP for Friday’s lunch by 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 10. More information on the lunch (and how to RSVP) is available here.

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