Press Freedom under Assault: Preserving our Democracy

Every day the free press in America faces new attacks. To safeguard this cherished liberty, ClassACT HR73’s Justice and Civic Engagement Committee has launched a Freedom of the Press initiative to confront the current challenges to publishing the truth. The constitutional freedom that permits citizens to scrutinize governments and to hold elected officials accountable, and that allows journalists to report local, national and international news, is under threat. The time has come to protest these incursions and to protect the First Amendment and our constitutional democracy

Join us for ClassACT HR73’s online forum “Press Freedom under Attack: Preserving our Democracy.” Our moderator will be Sylvester Monroe ’73, Senior Fellow at the University of Southern California Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. Among our panelists will be Geoffrey Cowan, University Professor of Communication at USC and a distinguished First Amendment attorney; Susan Goldberg, the president and CEO of GBH, the largest producer of PBS content and a major provider of NPR programming; and Kevin Merida, the former executive editor of the Los Angeles Times and the former managing editor of the Washington Post.

Sylvester Monroe, who reported and edited for Newsweek, Time and the Washington Post, and the three panelists will examine the unprecedented nature of current attacks on the media. The group will trace how United States arrived at a point where the government attempts to censor the language of respected outlets like the Associated Press and the Department of Justice investigates NBC for its “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies. In addition, National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service now face efforts to cut off federal funding. The panel will examine whether these actions and other threats represent a fundamental shift in the relationship between journalism and politics, one that signals a movement toward authoritarianism.