#press-freedom

#press-freedom

The Pentagon blackballed its own newspaper from covering its own press conference? Reminder, Stars & Stripes employees are US Army civilians. Their editorial independence is protected by Congress specifically to prevent political leaders from feeding troops propaganda.

The Defense Department has barred press photographers from briefings on the ongoing U.S.-Israeli military conflict with Iran after they published photos of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that his staff deemed 'unflattering,' according to two people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

Public records allow citizens and journalists to hold those in power accountable to us, the people of Indiana. We can see how our government is spending money, who benefits and who is adversely impacted. Kelly pursued the records on executions so her readership could more clearly see what executions were costing the state.

The project was prompted by a new practice requiring all journalists or outlets who received any non-Russian funding to self-identify as "foreign agents." At first, the reactions of TV Rain on-air host Anna Nemzer and her colleagues, forced to read an absurd disclaimer at the beginning of every story, is one of typically Russian dark humor.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at Wednesday's briefing alongside Gen. Dan Caine, accused the American press of covering U.S. service member deaths in Iran for one reason only: to make the president look bad. The comment landed like a grenade in a briefing room that was already a stage with One America News Network and The Daily Wire called on first, and the BBC only summoned, per CNN's Brian Stelter, because Hegseth apparently liked anchor Tom Batemans tie.

The MAGA crew does relatively little reporting, so most coverage of the US military is now happening from outside the Pentagon's five walls. Journalists from some traditional outlets were allowed to attend this morning's press conference with Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine. But Hegseth only answered Q's from his chosen outlets.

For many years, Donald Trump has trashed CNN and has taught his loyal followers to do the same. During the 2016 presidential campaign, angry chants of CNN sucks! reverberated at his campaign rallies, and he still jumps at every opportunity to disparage star CNN journalists such as Kaitlan Collins. He charges that the cable network is dishonest and biased against him.

We've been locked out, banned, denied, restricted for more than 2 years. The Israeli government has refused to allow journalists into Gaza to report independently, to show the world the reality of war and this fragile ceasefire from every angle. It is long past time for Israel to lift this ban and let us in.

In a ruling on Tuesday, Magistrate Judge William Porter seemed to indicate the government could not be trusted to stick to its narrow search without exposing more than 1,000 of Natanson's government sources to the Justice Department. It immediately fell like a dash of good news for the press.

The court rejected the government's first two requests for a search warrant because they were too broad. The court was "concerned about both the scope of the proposed search warrant and the government's apparent attempt to collect information about Ms. Natanson's confidential sources." The search warrant ultimately approved by the court was limited to information that Natanson received from Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones and information related to Perez-Lugones that could be evidence in the case against him.

A federal judge in Virginia on Friday declined to immediately rule on the Washington Post's request for the government to return devices seized from reporter Hannah Natanson in a January raid of her home. But the judge, William B. Porter of the eastern district of Virginia, acknowledged the enormity and significance of the seizure during the afternoon hearing. Ms Natanson has basically been deprived of her life's work, he said.

Alican Uludag is a well-known investigative journalist who focuses on reporting about corruption," said Massing. He is very well-connected and has access to important sources. This makes him dangerous to the government, in their eyes. The fact that a journalist is being treated like a serious criminal, taken away by 30 police officers and brought directly to Istanbul, serves as a deliberate act of intimidation and shows how severely the government is suppressing press freedom. Our colleague must be released immediately.

About 15 migrants who are not from Cameroon have been sent to the country by the United States since January, according to Alma David, one of the attorneys advocating for the deportees. The deportations to Cameroon come amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to pressure foreign nations into signing onto secretive third-country deportation agreements, which allow the federal government to remove migrants from the U.S. and send them to places other than their country of origin.

This recognition is a reminder of why public records laws have teeth - and why someone has to be willing to use them.

PG&E scaling up to provide power to new data centers is beyond comical. They can't even deliver reliable power to residential customers. My area of San Jose, including my own home, has experienced over a dozen power outages since 2022, the longest lasting eight and nine hours back-to-back during the 2022 heatwave. Before we rely on PG&E to supply power to these new data centers, city leaders should be asking the utility how committed they are to serving their residential customers.