a Better Bubble™
Dear Friend of Press Freedom,
For 150 days, Rümeysa Öztürk has faced deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like, and for 69 days, Mario Guevara has been imprisoned for covering a protest. Read on for more, and click here to subscribe to our other newsletters.
Letters and condemnations have their place in press freedom advocacy, especially when dealing with a persuadable audience. But that playbook isn’t working for journalists in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his arms supplier, President Donald Trump, don’t care about journalists’ lives, let alone their freedoms.
Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) board member and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Azmat Khan and her colleagues, Meghnad Bose and Lauren Watson, spoke to over 20 journalists and activists, including FPF Executive Director Trevor Timm, in search of novel ideas to stop Israel’s slaughter of journalists and concealment of war crimes. Read more in Columbia Journalism Review.
It’d be journalistic malpractice for reporters to ignore a prominent public official listing a boarded-up house as his residence to claim eligibility for his position. But that’s not how John Sarcone III, acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, sees it.
He was reportedly “incensed” by reporting from the Times Union of Albany and ordered the paper removed from his office’s media list. In response, FPF, Demand Progress Education Fund, and Reinvent Albany filed a complaint with New York’s Attorney Grievance Committee. Read more here.
Eugene police threatened documentary filmmaker Tim Lewis with arrest if he didn’t back up while filming them. But Lewis noticed another reporter wearing a vest marked “PRESS” filming without police harassment.
Turns out he wasn’t a reporter at all — he was a police public information program coordinator. As FPF Advocacy Director Seth Stern told Double Sided Media, “Police officers obstructing lawful journalism and giving their own publicly funded propagandists the exclusive right to record them up close is unconstitutional, un-American, and absurd.”
Eugene police have reportedly said they will replace the word “press” with “videographer.” Read more here.
A group of students sued Lawrence Public Schools in Kansas over the district’s use of surveillance software against students, including student journalists. Naturally, the student newspaper wanted to report on the case. But the principal ordered them not to, and the students believed their faculty adviser would be fired if they disobeyed.
Major news conglomerates have caved to official pressure, but not these kids. They sought a court order prohibiting the school from censoring them, leading the principal to drop his censorial directive and a judge to remind the district that the adviser was legally protected from retaliation. Then they published their story. Read it here.
A district court rightly struck down Puerto Rico’s “fake news” law, which criminalized raising “false alarms” about public emergencies. Now, FPF and other rights organizations are urging an appellate court to affirm the ruling in a legal brief authored by the University of Georgia School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic.
The brief explained how the law could be selectively enforced to chill reporting that officials dislike. Read more here.
Pritzker signs bill to protect freedom of press, Illinois journalists (WCIA). A nonsensical court ruling excluded news reporting from the protection of Illinois’ law against strategic lawsuits against public participation. FPF worked with local organizations and lawyers to help fix the mess.
Human rights groups to university administrators: Dismantle surveillance to defend free speech now (Fight for the Future). Surveillance technology has no place on college campuses and especially in student newsrooms. We joined a letter calling on universities to dismantle these dangerous tools.
Lawyers ask judge to order ICE to free Spanish-language journalist from immigration detention (Associated Press). Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s targeting of Mario Guevara — a lawful U.S. resident — based on his journalism is a flagrant First Amendment violation. He must be released.
US: Excessive force against LA protesters (Human Rights Watch). HRW usually focuses on wars and atrocities. Now, they’re investigating LA cops’ violence against protesters and journalists. It’s not because it’s a slow atrocity news week — it’s because the situation in LA really is that bad.
Israel says it killed a Hamas commander. It killed a Pulitzer-winning journalist (The New York Times). “The military made no attempt to obscure this brazen strike on civilians, which is a war crime.” And as +972 Magazine explained, it’s far from the first time Israel smeared journalists as terrorists to justify killing them. Its army has a unit tasked with linking journalists to Hamas.
Watchdog or ‘witch hunt’? Highland releases final review of town clerk’s office (River Reporter). Good for the upper Delaware region’s River Reporter for not letting an embattled town supervisor’s veiled threat of a SLAPP stop it from doing its job.
Journalists planning to cover McCormick, Perry event in Pennsylvania must prove their US citizenship (Penn Live). “Journalists who are citizens should decline to attend if their peers are excluded. They should spend their Tuesday investigating politicians and arms manufacturers rather than covering their photo ops,” Stern said.
For the Record is MuckRock’s weekly newsletter that keeps you informed on public records transparency battles, threats and wins. Sign-up to get original reporting, access to FOIA trainings and more.
District 5 is investigating a shooting that happened on August 22, 2025 in the 5800 block of Kennerly Avenue.
The post 18-year-old Shot in Wells-Goodfellow appeared first on St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
If you are having difficulties accessing the information in PDF files on this page, please email website@slmpd.org for an alternative document.
The post Litigation Committee – Tuesday, August 26, 2025 Meeting appeared first on St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
stLouIST