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43 Media L. Notes 1 (2014-2015)

handle is hein.journals/mdilwnts43 and id is 1 raw text is: AEJMC Law & Policy Division Head Note Chip Stewart Texas Christian University d.stewart@tcu.edu During the ongoing protests in Ferguson, Missouri, that began in August, 22 journalists have been arrested, according to the Freedom of the Press Foundation. These include Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post and Ryan J. Reilly of the Huffington Post, both detained after a run-in with police who asked them to leave a McDonald's restaurant, to citizen journalist Antonio French, who was swept up during the protests. The protests, which began just as the fall semester was staring for many of us, are a challenge and an opportunity for us as teachers of mass media law and policy. We traditionally teach about the theory and practice of the First Amendment through a series of cases and history, but we also have history in the making, with journalists and dissenters being intimidated and arrested for scrutinizing government conduct -- the sort of thing we would more often associate with the World War I era, or Cold War Soviet Union, or even China or Russia today -- but instead here and now in the United States. Our own Dan Kozlowski, vice head of the Law & Policy Division and a media law professor at St. Louis University, used the Ferguson protests and arrests in his Freedom of Expression course, was quoted in an article by Poynter in saying that You could teach a whole course on Ferguson. The episode got me thinking about what it is I teach, and what it is we impart to students in our media law courses. I know that when I took a media law course 20ish years ago, we mostly focused on First Amendment matters, student speech and libel. My law school experience was largely the same, with more focus on theory and caselaw and less on the practicalities of having a working knowledge of the law in a way that would be meaningful for young journalists. That was the sort of thing to be learned in a newsroom, not in a classroom. But along the way, we can impart some very practical lessons to students. One See Head Notes, 2 In This Issue The revelations sprung on the world by Edward Snowden continue to resonate and raise questions about ev- erything from government surveillance of communications to free flow of infor- mation to the protection of whistleblow- ers and the intersection of leak investiga- tions and the journalistic process. Often compared to Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the documents leading to the Pentagon Papers case, a staple in Com Law classes since 1971, the long- term legal effects of Snowden's leaks are far from determined. However, his revelations and their effects on news- gathering and journalism itself have not been muted. Snowden's role in fueling an interna- tional debate was a centerpiece in this year's Tully Center of Free Speech Award at Syracuse University's Newhouse Roy Gutterman Director, Tully Center for Free Speech Assoc. Prof., S.I. Newhouse School Syracuse University rsgutter@syr.edu School. The award honors a journalist who has faced significant turmoil in the previous year. In the past, the center has rewarded journalists from far-off parts of the world who have been jailed, kidnapped, beaten, tortured and exiled. This year's honoree, Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of The Guardian, dealt with different kinds of problems than our previous six winners. The British editor faced and still faces possible criminal sanctions following his publication of stories based on the See Specter, 2 1

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