I’ve been banging the drum about the need for a federal anti-SLAPP law for a long time now, and one has just been proposed. Call your Congresspeople!
More on the bill from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
people talk about “the media” and “journalists” and they picture the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or cable news.
and sure, “the media” is the Big Five. but it’s also non-profit newsrooms, independent journalists, international and/or non-US publications, worker-owned media collectives, bloggers, local newsrooms, citizen journalists, podcasters, critics, community radio stations, documentary filmmakers, trade publications, freelancers, fact checkers...
if you applaud attacks and legal intimidation against “the media” and “journalists” because you are picturing the former, remember that it is ultimately the smaller fish who will suffer the most from it.
don’t let the failures of some (major) news outlets disillusion you with media as a whole. and especially don’t let those failures desensitize you to attacks on free expression.
we can criticize media failures while also fiercely defending media freedom.
it is scary to see people responding to trump’s baseless lawsuits against the NYT and others with a shrug because of their complaints about those outlets’ coverage of him.
we can oppose lawfare against media institutions and also hold those institutions properly to account for poor coverage.
allowing authoritarians to target media institutions you don’t like only works until they decide to start targeting the ones you do — often ones with far fewer resources than the NYT and its ilk.
test print. 9x12”
The drumbeat of legal threats signals a potentially ominous trend for journalists during Trump’s second term in office. Litigation is costly and time-consuming. Most news organizations will look to settle rather than face months—more likely years—of discovery and depositions, plus significant legal fees.
“It is both conscious and unconscious. Journalists at smaller outlets know very well that the costs for their organization to defend themselves could mean bankruptcy. Even journalists at larger outlets don’t want to burden themselves or their employees with lawsuits. It puts another layer of influence into the journalistic process,” [Anne Champion] said.
Perhaps the CJR editors decided it went without saying, but it feels worth mentioning that — if Trump’s appointments go as planned — he will have the entire judicial branch to bring to bear on journalists, not just his wacky lawyer neighbor.
For anyone looking to adjust their media diet, now’s a great time to consider escaping The Algorithms with RSS. My blogroll lists some of the blogs, newsletters, and independent news sites I follow.
For feed readers, I use Inoreader, but there are many other good options.
From sanewashing to false equivalence, many readers have had it with their favorite news publications. Editors would do well to listen.
ah. well.
it is nuts for someone who runs a crypto media outlet to write this, and even more nuts for Time magazine to publish it
i respect laura shin’s work but suggesting she’s a neutral observer is about as bananas as suggesting i am
i will say it is brave of her to “come out” as a progressive in the crypto world, which is heavily pro-trump and prone to attacking anyone who isn’t. i’m sure that wasn’t an easy decision given her business.
Jeff Bezos describing journalism as “our profession” in an op-ed defending his decision to kill the Washington Post’s Harris endorsement
