Oliver Darcy: “The American press is facing, arguably, the gravest potential threat to its freedom in a generation. The four-time indicted, twice-impeached disgraced former president, Donald Trump, who admitted Tuesday that he will govern as a “dictator” on “day one” should he win office again, is overtly vowing to weaponize government and seek retribution against the news media, showing no regard for the First Amendment protections afforded to the Fourth Estate.”
It’s an increasingly familiar drama: Local authorities go after journalists and publishers of small papers, which find themselves on the First Amendment’s front lines.t
Press-freedom advocates are raising the alarm that the arrests of the Atmore News’s publisher and reporter are unconstitutional.
The initial online search of a state website that led a central Kansas police chief to raid a local weekly newspaper was legal, a spokesperson for the agency that maintains the site said Monday, as the newspaper remains under investigation.
Law enforcement officers in Kansas raided the office of a local newspaper and a journalist’s home on Friday, prompting outrage over what First Amendment experts are calling a likely violation of federal law.