Yale Law School Launches Media Freedom and Information Access Practicum

Yale Law School has announced the launch of a Media Freedom and Information Access Practicum (MFIA). Law students aim to use litigation and policy work to increase government transparency. MFIA is an initiative of Yale's Information Society Project and the Knight Law & Media Program.

For more information, click here.

Federal Media Shield Bill Advances

The Senate Judiciary Committee cleared the media shield bill, a bill to protect reporters' confidential sources in federal court, except in cases of national security.

The bill defines journalists broadly, including bloggers, citizen journalists and freelancers.

For more information, click here.

Dissecting Sotomayor's media law record

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press posted an analysis of how Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, handled three cases related to media law. In U.S. v. Quattrone, she wrote the majority opinion that struck down a gag order on the press related to the retrial of a former Credit Suisse First Boston executive. In Aequitron Medical Inc. v. CBS, she wrote the opinion that allowed the infant monitor manufacturer to sue CBS News for various business claims but dismissed the defamation and trade libel claims based on procedural grounds. Although Sotomayor has favored withholding records rather than releasing them under federal FOIA, she ordered the release of the suicide note of former deputy White House counsel Vince Foster.

We're compiling a full report on the record of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, in the areas of First Amendment and media law, and expect to post our findings here tomorrow. In the meantime, though, Sotomayor's input on three cases seemed particularly noteworthy:

In high-stakes prosecution, Sotomayor rejected prior restraints on the press.

A 2005 opinion regarding the high-profile prosecution of a bank executive suggests that Sotomayor, in her time as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan (2nd. Cir), understood well the value of a transparent judiciary and a free press.

More here.

D.C. program to examine impact of Reporters Committee case

The Collaboration on Government Secrecy will hold "Privacy Protection After Twenty Years Under Reporters Committee" from 8:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. April 28, 2009, at American University Washington College of Law.

In 1989, in what arguably is the most significant Freedom of Information Act decision ever issued, the Supreme Court in Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press both broadened the concept of personal privacy and narrowed the definition of the “public interest” in disclosure.

This decision brought about nothing less than a sea change in privacy protection by radically altering the balancing process by which federal agencies decide whether to invoke the FOIA’s privacy exemptions -- leading to the withholding of greater amounts of information from the public.

Marking the 20th anniversary of this landmark FOIA decision, this program examines Reporters Committee’s full impact on government openness versus the protection of personal privacy and explores its continued viability with the passage of time.

Highlights of the agenda include:

• A keynote address by Jane Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law Director at the University of Minnesota
• Panel discussing the origin of the case, the formulation of the government's position and the unexpected breadth of the Supreme Court's decision
• Panel analyzing the Supreme Court's novel "practical obscurity" concept for protecting personal privacy interests.
• Luncheon address by Mary Ellen Callahan, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Freedom of Information Act Officer for the Department of Homeland Security
• Panel considering the Reporters Committee "core purpose" standard for determining a limited "public interest" that can be balanced in favor of disclosure
• Panel reviewing the Reporters Committee's impact on FOIA administration, FOIA litigation and implementation of the Privacy Act of 1974
  

Register here.