An Introduction to Your First Amendment Rights
october 23, 2019
Attorney Efrem Grail recalls his time as a young newspaper reporter in Mississippi during his Frredom of the Press discussion at the McKeesport Community Newsroom.
Photograph by Martha Rial
Two reporters with laptops and little else finally brought credibility to long-standing accusations of international sex trafficking by multimillionaire Jeffery Epstein. They did it with newspaper articles, national and local Freedom of Information Act requests and sweat. In real time for us to witness, these journalists reminded us why the First Amendment, free speech and an independent press are essential. They broke through a protection racket facilitated by society stalwarts, corrupt handlers and payoffs that stretched around the globe. Should history judge the stories as true, their revelations will have shed light on a criminal conspiracy fueled by cash to procure and silence young women and girls into victimization and sexual abuse.
That’s just one dramatic example.
It’s easy to forget the importance of our First Amendment protections; today’s problems aren’t free speech, it’s too much speech. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, social media of all varieties; bloggers, cable news networks and podcasts; the 24-hour news cycle, online radio, podcasts and even old-fashioned network television. They all blend together as international background noise.
But the heavy lifting that most people care about is still done at the local level: where to find the best draft beer, who died over the weekend and whether public schools are closed for snow days; which city council person voted to fund a business which, surprise! is owned by their brother-in-law; who on the public school board sends their kids to private school.
The work of the groups like the McKeesport Community Newsroom, an initiative of Point Park University's Center for Media Innovation, remains at the heart of what communities need and care about: building community to establish and strengthen connections between people who drink the same water, breath the same air, pay the same taxes and educate their children in the same schools. We can’t turn our back on communities, and we can’t continue to ignore community journalism.
It wasn’t for nothing that Jefferson wrote in 1787 that if he had to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” It’s a privilege to work in my law practice on behalf of the First Amendment, defending against defamation claims and trying to shield reporters’ sources from grand jury inquires.
Before I began practicing law, I worked as a daily news reporter (too many years ago to remember).
I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Local reporters and writers are the true First Amendment heroes, and I’m so proud to support the work McKeesport Community Newsroom is doing in the Mon Valley for local reporters, interested residents and citizen journalists.
They will never forget Thomas Paine distributing his pamphlets inciting the American Revolution. We all need to think of him every time we see a news article that sheds light on important issue or events, and replace ignorance with knowledge. Jefferson understood that tyranny awaits those who don’t.
Jefferson was right.