Media Freedom in a Changing World

Media Freedom in a Changing World: Erin Coyle and Eric P. Robinson

Erin Coyle is an associate professor of media law and the First Amendment at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. She teaches media law and is an affiliate faculty member of the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at ASU. She has published a book on privacy and press freedom, and she has published legal and historical scholarship in peer-reviewed journals. Eric P. Robinson is the Reid H. Montgomery Chair in Freedom of Information at the University of South Carolina. Professor Robinson teaches media and internet law as an associate professor at the USC School of Journalism and Mass Communications and is an Academic Affiliate of the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law. He also writes a monthly media law column for the South Carolina Press Association. In this episode, professors Coyle and Robinson discuss recent research they have done on how artificial intelligence can be used to improve government agency compliance with the Freedom of Information Act, as well as concerns about AI use in the public records context.

Media Freedom in a Changing World: Lyrissa Lidsky

Lyrissa Lidsky is the Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Chair in U.S. Constitutional Law at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. Her research focuses on the intersection of the First Amendment and tort law, with an emphasis on free speech and new technologies. Lidsky is co-reporter for the "Third Restatement of Defamation and Privacy" and is the new author of "Sack on Defamation." She has co-authored casebooks on media law, First Amendment law, and torts, and has published dozens of law review articles and other scholarly works. Her most recent article, published in the "Journal of Free Speech Law," grapples with defamation issues engendered by the newest developments in artificial intelligence. In this episode, she discusses the various collisions between AI and tort law, including AI outputs that could be classified as speech and also discusses how perceptions of the rational audience in First Amendment law are being challenged by new technologies.

Media Freedom in a Changing World: Katherine Jacobsen

Katherine Jacobsen is the U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, where she focuses on documenting press freedom violations and supporting journalists at risk. She has authored two special reports, one on the second Trump administration's impact on media freedom, and the other on the state of local press freedom in the United States. Prior to working at CPJ, Katherine was a foreign correspondent in Russia with the Associated Press and in Ukraine as a freelancer. In this episode, Jacobsen discusses the CPJ’s work and key issues the organization is focusing on, including cascading media problems with the Trump administration and, on the more local front, arrests of journalists for their coverage of immigration issues.

Media Freedom in a Changing World: David Greene

David Greene is the senior staff attorney and civil liberties director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, based in San Francisco. He serves on the steering committee of the Free Expression Network, the governing committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law, and on advisory boards for several arts and free speech organizations across the country. He has written and lectured extensively on many areas of First Amendment law. In this episode, Greene discusses possible privacy threats from various uses of smartphones and the “Internet of Things” and how to assess and address those threats. He also discusses information access and privacy concerns raised by attempts to ban social media use by minors, as well as the implications of the Supreme Court’s recent upholding of a Texas law requiring adult websites to use age verification technology to block access to the sites by minors.

Media Freedom in a Changing World: Frank LoMonte

Frank LoMonte is senior legal counsel to the newsroom at CNN, advising the network’s 3,000 worldwide journalists on a wide range of legal issues implicating the right to gather and distribute news. He joined CNN in 2022 from the faculty at the University of Florida, where he taught media law and ran the Joseph L. Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, a think-tank focusing on the public’s right of access to information. For nearly 10 years, he served as national director of the Student Press Law Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit supporting journalism students and educators nationwide. At the SPLC, he launched the “New Voices” project to enact state laws safeguarding college and high school media against undue government censorship, which are now on the books in 18 states. In this episode, LoMonte discusses a wide range of press freedom issues, including issues related to recent controversies involving the Indiana Daily Student newspaper at Indiana University-Bloomington.