The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/media/)
A professor at the University of California Davis School of Law predicts Supreme Court justices will defend the First Amendment principles of free speech against government attempts to curb Internet abuses—even when those abuses involve promoting falsehoods online.
Apparently prompted by his favorite TV show, “Fox and Friends,” Trump tweeted that the media was “working overtime” against him. “Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt?” he wrote on Twitter. “Take away credentials?”
The Florida man who was acquitted of murder in the Trayvon Martin case is accused of threatening to feed an investigator for a documentary series about the case to an alligator.
NBC, ABC walk back reports that federal authorities had eavesdropped on calls involving one of President Trump’s lawyers. The story actually involved a “pen register,” a log of calls made from specific phone lines.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel won’t take any more gun advertising. The father of a teen killed in the Parkland massacre complained that the newspaper published a front page ad for a gun show under a story about students mourning the death of a Parkland victim who would have turned 15 on Tuesday.
Coverage of many criminal justice topics won Pulitzer Prizes, including stories on the investigation of the Trump campaign’s links with Russia, the sexual misconduct charges against Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore, and the heroin epidemic in Ohio.
Calvin Buari, convicted of a double murder he didn’t commit, was a casualty of over-zealous prosecutors in New York’s tough-on-crime era of the 1990s. In a conversation with The Crime Report about his new podcast, “Empire on Blood,” investigative journalist Steve Fishman tells the story of the battle to clear his name.
Coverage by conservative media of the relatively routine occurrence of migrant caravans ignores the fact that many participants plan to resettle in Mexico, not illegally enter the U.S.
Americans’ fascination with the justice system has made shows like “Orange is the New Black” popular. But two new podcasts provide a powerful platform for the voices of those who’ve actually experienced life behind bars.
Police officers still are killing U.S. civilians at about the same rate as they did in 2015, but attention to the Trump administration has forced police violence and criminal justice reform more broadly out of the headlines.