Stanford Federalist Society Tries To 'Cancel' Law Student For Satirical Email About Josh Hawley

from the free-speech-except-when-our-feels-are-hurt dept

Update: Perhaps due to all of the negative publicity this received, Stanford agreed to drop the investigation, and allow Wallace to go on with graduating. The original story remains below.

Ah, the Federalist Society. It makes a big deal about how "cancel culture" is supposedly a "threat to liberty" but apparently that doesn't apply when someone makes fun of them. Nicholas Wallace is a 3rd year law student at Stanford Law, and a few weeks after the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol, Wallace decided to highlight that some prominent FedSoc members who were seen to have cheered on the riot at the Capitol. So he created an obviously satirical email mocking the Federalist Society and the types of events it normally holds and sent it to a Stanford Law listserv. In this case, Wallace made an invite for a fake FedSoc event, parodying standard FedSoc events, entitled: "The Originalist Case for Inciting Insurrection" and claimed that the main speakers at the event would be insurrectionist fist bumper Senator Josh Hawley and still under indictment for felony fraud Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton.

The invite goes on to note:

Violent insurrection, also known as doing a coup, is a classical system of installing a government. Although widely believed to conflict in every way with the rule of law, violent insurrection can be an effective approach to upholding the principle of limited government. Senator Hawley will argue that the ends justify the means. Attorney General Paxton will explain that when the Supreme Court refuses to exercise its Article III authority to overturn the results of a free and fair election, calling on a violent mob to storm the Capitol represents an appropriate alternative remedy.

I mean, it may not be the funniest bit of satire ever, but it's pretty clearly satire. But the good old Stanford chapter of the Federalist Society completely flipped out about it. The organization filed an actual complaint with Stanford Law. The complaint itself speaks extremely poorly to whatever it is they're teaching future lawyers at Stanford Law these days.

On January 25, 2021, at 8:38 a.m., Nicholas Wallace sent an email to Stanford Law School’s “Law Talk” email list-serv, where he impersonated the Stanford Federalist Society, a student group, through a false event flyer and attributed false and defamatory beliefs to persons he listed on the event flyer.

Do they not teach Stanford Law students how defamation works these days? Do they not teach what satire is? Or how the 1st Amendment works? I mean, you can just hear the whiny petulance of students who feel they should never ever be mocked.

Wallace defamed the student group, its officers, Senator Josh Hawley, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Wallace, impersonating the Stanford Federalist Society, wrote on the flyer that “Riot information will be emailed the morning of the event,” insinuating that the student group was encouraging and hosting a riot. He also wrote that Attorney General Paxton advocates for “overturn[ing] the results of a free and fair election” by “calling on a violent mob to storm the Capitol.” And he wrote that Senator Hawley believes that violent insurrections are justified.

That's not how defamation works, guys. The complaint whines that many people believed the event was real, which seems to say a hell of a lot more about the kinds of events the Federalist Society normally puts on, than on anything Wallace did.

However, in the last few weeks, Stanford Law school has somehow decided to treat this obviously bad faith whining about an obvious satire as a legitimate complaint and has put Wallace's graduation in doubt, just to appease the censorial crybabies of the Stanford Federalist Society:

After the Federalist Society officer confirmed to Stanford administrators on May 22 that he wanted to proceed with his complaint, Stanford initiated an investigation into Wallace and put a hold on his diploma two weeks before his law school graduation. If the hold is not released, Wallace will not receive his degree as planned on June 12.

“The timing of all of this could not be worse,” said Wallace. “Instead of focusing on my finals and celebrating graduation with my classmates, I am navigating a confusing judicial process and trying to convince Stanford to lift the hold on my degree.”

As the link above notes, the organization FIRE, which protects free speech on campus, is calling on Stanford to drop this silly investigation, let Wallace graduate, and not to give in to this obviously bad faith attempt to punish someone for some light mockery.

Filed Under: cancel culture, federalist society, free speech, josh hawley, ken paxton, nicholas wallace, parody, satire
Companies: stanford

Fact Check: Yes, Fact Checking Is Totally Protected By The 1st Amendment

from the i-mean,-holy-shit,-dude dept

The dumb takes on social media efforts to deal with problematic content keep getting dumber. Supposedly "conservative" commentator David Marcus has now written an opinion piece for Fox somehow arguing that fact checkers used on social media sites should be regulated. He's not the first to suggest this -- we just recently wrote about a Michigan legislator who was pushing an unconstitutional bill to regulate the fact checkers, but that this is the hill supposedly "conservatives" want to die on, seems particularly stupid.

Fact checking is protected by the 1st Amendment.

It is expressive. It is a core part of journalism as well, which is doubly protected under the "freedom of the press" part of the 1st Amendment. Marcus' article is so filled with dumb that it needs a fact check itself (as if Fox News ever did that sorta thing).

Nobody is checking the fact checkers, and it is time that changed. It’s time for government to regulate the fact checking industry.

Okay, let's start with Fox News. Should we have government regulators crack down on Fox News consistent fact check failures? Including publishing this nonsense article? Of course not. It's protected by the 1st Amendment as well.

This may seem antithetical to traditional conservative values of small government, but the ubiquitous and monopolistic nature of social media, the power it has to frame how we see the world, is an existential challenge. We cannot be slaves to orthodoxy if that means Americans are subject not only to lies, but also the censorship of the truth.

It's not just antithetical to the values of small government, it's antithetical to the 1st Amendment, which seems like a bigger problem. And, no, social media does not have "the power to frame how we see the world." After all, studies have shown repeatedly that Fox News's own lies have had a much bigger impact than social media in framing how people see the news. And, again, that's protected by the 1st Amendment.

The truly incredible part in this, of course, is that folks like Marcus seem to only want regulations when he believes the people he agrees with are treated unfairly. When it's others? He'd be the first one screaming about the Constitution. He's not principled, beyond "my team must win, and if not, I'll play victim."

Marcus' attempt to deal with the 1st Amendment issue is laughable to say the least:

The First Amendment rightly renders government powerless to regulate news outlets’ publishing content from their own in house fact checkers -- they are protected by freedom of the press. But third party independent fact checkers are another story entirely.

No, they're not another story altogether. Fact checking is expressive and it is a function of the press as well. You cannot regulate it.

These are entities such as Lead Stories, Politifact, and even the Associated Press that offer their fact checking expertise to social media platforms so the latter can claim they are not making editorial decisions. But that only works if third party fact checkers are operating objectively and without bias. It is quite obvious that this is not the case. 

Again, it's pretty fucking rich for someone on Fox News to be whining about "bias."

So what can be done about this dangerous situation? A new bill before the Michigan House of Representatives is a move in the right direction. The bill would require fact checkers to register with the government and carry insurance to cover payment to those who suffer financial damages as a result of a bogus fact check.

Laws like this can establish simple, uniform practices that fact checkers must abide by to provide fairness in the service they provide. 

No, laws like that are unconstitutional attacks on 1st Amendment protected activity.

 Regulating the fact checking industry would provide much needed accountability to the American people.

No, it's an effort to intimidate fact checkers who call out bullshit like yours, Marcus.

Facts are supposed to be stubborn. Either an article or post is factual or it isn’t.

Your article is not factual.

Regulating the fact checking industry would not be any kind of government censorship of the media; it would not deprive any publishing entity from running a fact check. It would merely ensure that companies which sell their fact checking services are applying objective standards when evaluating material. This is something they should be doing anyway, and is something that they are demonstrably not doing at present. 

I mean, come on. This one is too easy. Just turn it around: "Regulating cable news would not be any kind of government censorship of the media; it would not deprive any publishing entity of saying what it wanted. It would merely ensure that cable TV channels are applying "objective standards" in airing content. This is something they should be doing anyway, and is something they are demonstrably not doing at present."

Same damn thing.

The American people do not just have to sit back and take it as social media platforms, which provide huge swaths of them with their news, hire censors that lie about what constitutes a fact.  

No, they don't have to sit back. They can step up and speak out wherever else they'd like -- such as on Fox News, or on their own websites. What they can't do is get the government involved to intimidate fact checkers and threaten them with fines if they fact check "the wrong way."

Again, this is easy to demonstrate with just a few changes: "The American people do not just have to sit back and take it as Fox News, which provides huge swaths of them with their news, hires propagandists that lie about what constitutes a fact." And, again, American people don't have to sit back. They can ignore Fox News, they can watch other channels, they can speak out about Fox News's continued blatant propaganda and misinformation... or they can boycott their advertisers. There's lots they can do, and lots users of Facebook can do. What they cannot do under the Constitution, is pass a law regulating expressive activity like fact checking.

The people, through their elected officials absolutely have a right to ensure that this industry is providing a level playing field.

Again, let's apply that to Fox News as well to see how laughable a statement that is.

If one was to sell a service in which they weighed produce to set a price it would and should be illegal for them to secretly use different scales depending on the farmer or the type of produce.

Weighing this is not expression, genius.

Throughout the past year biased fact checking has done irreparable harm to the body politic. 

Throughout the past decade, biased Fox News has done irreparable harm to the body politic. How the hell do people like Marcus not recognize that every claim they're making applies equally back on them.

Regulating the fact checking industry would go a long way towards ensuring the American people are never misled in this manner again. 

Again, replace fact checking with "Fox News." And imagine how David Marcus would react if there were a serious legislative proposal to that effect.

Social media companies want to have it both ways. They insist that they are not publishers and therefore not liable for what appears on their supposedly neutral platforms. But they also insist that it is fine for them to suppress content because a third party fact checker, chosen by the social media company itself, says they should.

This is not what they insist. This is what a bunch of fake "conservative" idiots have pretended they insist in order to knock down a strawman.

There is nothing special about fact checkers that protects them from regulations requiring them to be fair and honest in their dealings.

They engage in expressive activity. Which makes them protected under the 1st Amendment, just like you and me.

This entire opinion piece is full of misleading, nonsense, and blatant factual errors. But, yeah, sure it's the "fact checkers" that need regulating.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, content moderation, david marcus, fact checking, free speech, journalism

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr Not Interested In Baltimore Prosecutor's Request To Have The FCC Investigate Her Critics

from the FCC-isn't-here-to-help-you-curtail-other-people's-rights dept

Earlier this month, Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby decided to do something she definitely shouldn't have. Mosby may claim to be part of the "progressive prosecutor" movement, but her decision to ask the federal government to investigate a prominent critic of hers is pretty goddamn regressive.

Mosby doesn't care for the allegedly slanted coverage she's receiving from WBFF, a local Fox affiliate. Rather than accept the fact that criticism -- even when it's made in bad faith -- is part of the public service job, she decided to ask the FCC to open an investigation into the station. She attempted to justify this by quoting the FCC's own words back at it, noting that FCC rules say "intentionally distorting the news" is forbidden.

Distortion in newscasting has been a thing for years and it takes far more than the pretty innocuous examples provided by Mosby to get the FCC to start trifling with the First Amendment. Most of the anti-Mosby stuff seemed to be the usual anti-whatever stuff that happens when news stations call in commentators to add a bit more opinion to the news. Mosby also complained she was receiving too much coverage, citing WBFF's 248 stories about her in 2020 -- far more than she observed at any competing news outlet.

Mosby claimed she had all the respect in the world for the First Amendment. But apparently WBFF had too much free speech at its disposal and that's why the FCC needed to step in.

One FCC commissioner has responded [PDF] so far. And it's Brendan Carr, the FCC's hackiest partisan. Taking a break from his usual business of assailing social media companies for dumping his favorite people from their platforms while vaguely threatening to do "something" about Section 230 immunity, Carr manages to make some good points despite himself. It probably helps that his target -- Marilyn Mosby -- is on the other side of the political fence. (h/t Volokh Conspiracy)

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr issued the following statement in response:

“The State’s Attorney’s Office, led by Democrat Marilyn Mosby, has launched a chilling and direct attack on free speech and journalistic freedom. The complaint her office filed with the FCC asks the Commission to censor a newsroom simply because journalists are doing their constitutionally protected jobs and shining a light on the work of the State’s Attorney. Invoking the power of the state to silence journalists for unfavorable coverage strikes at the very heart of the First Amendment.

“It is particularly troubling that a public official would work to silence reporters that are investigating her work at a time when federal prosecutors have already opened a criminal investigation into her activities.

“Indeed, the day after the State’s Attorney’s Office filed its complaint with the FCC, the targeted newsroom was awarded four prestigious Regional Edward R. Murrow awards for journalism excellence, including for one of its stories covering the work of the State’s Attorney’s Office.

Ouch. Carr then flips Mosby's words around to go after her, saying the only "troubling, abhorrent and downright dangerous" behavior he sees here is Mosby's attempt to silence her critics by siccing the FCC on them.

Then it goes a bit off the rails, with Carr turning this into a partisan thing rather than a "don't ask the FCC to fuck with the First Amendment" thing.

This complaint is part of a recent and troubling surge in efforts by Democrat officials to pressure the FCC and its regulated entities into censoring news coverage and political speech that Democrats don’t like. The FCC should make clear that it will not operate as the DNC’s speech police. That is why the FCC must dismiss this complaint with prejudice by the end of today.

That's pretty rich, considering this statement was released the same day it came to light the Trump/Barr DOJ sent a grand jury subpoena to Twitter demanding personal information about a user currently being sued for hurting GOP Congressman Devin Nunes' feelings. Abuse of federal powers is pretty bipartisan. But the most recent administration will be remembered forever for its four years of antipathy towards journalists and critics of Donald Trump.

The other commissioners will have to weigh in before this is final, but I don't like Mosby's odds. No matter which side of the political spectrum the other commissioners sit on, there's nothing in Mosby's complaint that justifies opening an investigation that has the potential to wreak havoc on free speech protections.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, brendan carr, fcc, free speech, marilyn mosby, news coverage
Companies: wbff

UK Now Calling Its 'Online Harms Bill' The 'Online Safety Bill' But A Simple Name Change Won't Fix Its Myriad Problems

from the this-is-not-how-this-should-work dept

We've talked a bit about the UK's long-running process to basically blame internet companies for all of society's ills. What was originally called the "online harms" bill has now officially morphed into the Online Safety Bill, which was recently released in draft form.

Despite the UK government insisting that it spent the past few years talking to various stakeholders, the final bill is a disaster for the open internet. Heather Burns, from the UK's Open Rights Group (loosely the UK's version of the EFF), has a short thread about the bill, explaining why it's so problematic. Here's the key bit:

You're going to read a lot today about the government's plans for the Online Safety Bill on #onlineharms, a regulatory process which has eaten up much of the past two years of my professional work. I suppose if I had a hot take to offer after two years, it's this:

1. If you see the bill being presented as being about "social media" "tech giants" "big tech" etc, that's bullshit. It impacts *all services of all sizes, based in the UK or not. Even yours.* Bonus: take a drink every time a journo or MP says the law is about reining in Facebook.
2. If you see the Bill being presented as being about children's safety, that's bullshit. It's about government compelling private companies to police the legal speech and behaviour of everyone who says or does anything online. Children are being exploited here as the excuse.
3. So as you read the Bill, consider how altruistic any government initiative must be if it requires two layers of A/B tested messaging disinformation.

A week earlier Burns, who's been deeply engaged in the process in the UK wrote up a long blog post explaining all the problems with the fundamental approach embraced in the bill: it's basically outsourcing all of the roles of the government to internet companies, and then threatening to punish them if they get it wrong. Here's just one important bit:

The first and most immediate impact of the imposition of senior management liability will be a chilling effect on free speech. This is always a consequence of content moderation laws which are overly prescriptive and rigid, or conversely, overly vague and sweeping.

When everything falls into a legally ambiguous middle ground, but the law says that legally ambiguous content must be dealt with, then service providers find themselves backed into a corner. What they do in response is take down vast swathes of user-generated content, the majority of which is perfectly legal and perhaps subjectively harmful, rather than run the risk of getting it wrong.

This phenomenon, known as “collateral censorship” – with your content being the collateral – has an immediate effect on the right to freedom of expression.

Now add the risk of management liability to the mix, and the notion that tech sector workers might face personal sanctions and criminal charges for getting it wrong, and you create an environment where collateral censorship, and the systematic takedowns of any content which might cause someone to feel subjectively offended, becomes a tool for personal as well as professional survival.

In response to this chilling effect, anyone who is creating any kind of public-facing content whatsoever – be that a social media update, a video, or a blog post – will feel the need to self-censor their personal opinions, and their legal speech, rather than face the risk of their content being taken down by a senior manager who does not want to get arrested for violating a “duty of care”.

The general summary for tons of experts is that this bill is a dumpster fire of epic proportions. Big Brother Watch notes that this would introduce "state-backed censorship and monitoring on a scale *never seen before* in a liberal democracy." The scariest part is that it will require companies to remove lawful speech. The bill refers to it as "lawful but still harmful" (which some have taken to calling "lawful but awful" speech). But as noted above, that really creates tremendous incentives for excessive censorship and suppression of all sorts of speech to avoid falling on the wrong line.

Indeed, this is the very model used by the Great Firewall of China. For years, rather than instructing internet companies what to block with the Great Firewall, internet companies would often just get vague messages about what kinds of content the government was "concerned" about, along with threats that if the internet companies didn't magically block all of that content, they (and their executives) would face liability. The end result is clearly significant over-blocking. If you only get punished for under-blocking, the natural result is going to be over-blocking.

Among the many other problems with this, the UK's approach will only lead the Chinese to insist that this shows their Great Firewall approach is the only proper way to regulate the internet. They've certainly done that before.

It really is quite incredible how closely the bill mimics the Great Firewall approach, but with UK regulators OFCOM stepping in for the role of the Chinese government:

There are a few attempts in the draft bill to put in place language that looks like they're supportive of free speech, but most of these are purely fig leaves -- the kind of thing they can point to in order to say "see, we support free speech, no censorship here, no siree" but which fail to take into account how these will work in practice.

Specifically, there's a section saying that websites (and executives), that will now face liability if they leave up too much "lawful but harmful" content, must make sure not to take down "democratically important" content. What does that mean? And who decides? Dunno. There's also a weird carveout for "journalists" but again, that's problematic, when you realize that merely the act of defining who is and who is not a journalism is a big free speech issue. And the bill does note that "citizen journalists will have the same protections as professional journalists." Does... that mean every UK citizen has to declare themselves a "citizen journalist" now? How does that even work?

The whole thing is not just a complete disaster, it's a complete disaster that tons of smart people have been warning the UK government about for the past two years without getting anywhere at all. I'm sure we'll have a lot more to say about it in the near future, but for now it really looks like the UK approach to "online harms"... er... "online safety" is to replicate the Chinese Great Firewall. And that's quite stunning.

Filed Under: censorship, china, free speech, intermediary liability, legal but harmful, online harms, online safety, uk

Michigan Legislator With No Understanding Of The 1st Amendment Wants To Fine Fact Checkers For Pointing Out His Lies

from the incredible dept

Michigan State Rep. Matt Maddock has quite a reputation for lying:

Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock, who has repeatedly spread lies about election fraud and falsely said COVID-19 “is less lethal than the flu,” wants to make it harder for fact-checkers to challenge unsubstantiated claims by politicians.

That's really only the start of a much longer list of problematic statements by the elected official:

Maddock made several attempts to overturn the election. In late December, he and Daire Rendon, R-Lake City, joined a federal lawsuit filed by Trump supporters to challenge the results of the election. The suit asked a judge to allow lawmakers to certify states' election results, a move that would enable the Republican-led Michigan Legislature to reject Biden's victory. But a judge turned down the suit, calling their arguments "flat-out wrong" and "a fundamental and obvious misreading of the Constitution."

It appears that Maddock's "fundamental and obvious misreading of the Constitution" extends to the 1st Amendment as well. He's now introduced an astoundingly unconstitutional bill that seeks to "register" and then fine fact checkers who fact check his lies. You can read his Fact Checker Registration Act (which somehow has eight other unserious co-sponsors) and just marvel at the blatant unconstitutionality of it all. I mean beyond all of the big problems with it, there's the fact that it literally calls out the Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network as requiring registration into his scheme.

Under the bill, any "fact checker" has to put up a $1 million bond, and then any "affected party" can sue any fact checker for the money put up in the bond, if they can show the fact checker engaged in "wrongful conduct that is a violation of the laws of this state."

What does that even mean? Well, Maddock made the unconstitutional intent of his bill abundantly clear in a Facebook post about it:

Social Media companies deplatform people, politicians, and businesses on the basis of “Fact Checkers” who relish their role punishing those whom they deem 'false’. Many believe this enormous economic and social power is being abused. Who are these Fact Checkers? We’re going to find out. My legislation will put Fact Checkers on notice: don't be wrong, don't be sloppy, and you better be right.

I mean, if we applied the same rules to him, he'd be paying out a ton of money, since he's so often wrong about things. But, also this is pretty obviously unconstitutional in multiple ways. Forcing fact checkers to register with the state is already highly questionable because the setup is designed to intimidate fact checking, which is a core form of protected speech, and some of the most important kinds of speech protected by the 1st Amendment. If, as is obviously the fact, the registration (and bond) requirement is designed to intimidate fact checkers, then it's clearly unconstitutional.

Second, courts have ruled over and over again that merely being "sloppy" and even making mistakes is not grounds for the speech to be deemed a violation of the law. This is why cases like NY Times v. Sullivan and United States v. Alvarez are so important. They recognize that the 1st Amendment means that the government can't willy nilly try to shut down speech, even if it's false.

Finally, the structure of the bill is just... weird. It says that a fact checking organization can get fined for "wrongful conduct that is a violation of the laws of this state." And while he claims that this includes being "sloppy," any such law that says being sloppy with your fact check is illegal in Michigan would, separately, violate the 1st Amendment.

This whole thing is just more victim playing by the modern GOP, who seems to feel that anyone calling them on their bullshit, disinformation, and lies, is somehow violating their rights, while having no qualms at all about stamping out the rights of those who actually tell the truth.

Of course, after lots of people started pointing out what an attack on free speech and a free press this bill was, Maddock tried to defend the bill, but only ended up producing a word salad of nonsense.

“This isn’t about journalists or free speech,” he said. “It’s about the fact checkers who have been injected into our First Amendment right to be wrong if we want to. If a fact-check entity is bankrupting businesses and cancelling people with lies, they should be held accountable. If they have high standards and are doing good fact checking, they have nothing to worry about.”

Fact checkers are journalists, dude. And what does "injected into our First Amendment right to be wrong" mean here -- especially given that he's trying to fine them if they're wrong?

Elect better people, Michigan voters.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, fact checking, fines, free speech, matt maddock, michigan, registration

Baltimore Prosecutor Asks FCC To Go After Local News Broadcasters She Doesn't Like

from the looking-real-progressive-there,-Marilyn dept

It's not often you see a politician ask the FCC to step in to punish a news station. And for good reason: the First Amendment. Politicians are welcome to fight speech they don't like with more speech, but they shouldn't be calling for a federal government investigation of a TV station just because they don't like the slant of the stories about them.

Baltimore (MD) City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby thinks a local Fox affiliate is unfairly portraying her and her official doings. Rather than just accept that this is part of being in the business of politics, Mosby is asking the FCC to ask Fox to stop being Fox. Here's the angry letter [PDF] her office wrote -- one she boosted into Streisandia by airing her particular grievance on Twitter. (h/t Adam Steinbaugh)

This is a formal complaint requesting an investigation into the broadcasting practices and media content distributed by FCC-licensed station WBFF, a Baltimore City-based Fox News-affiliated network, specifically the content distributed to the public about the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO), a government entity, and its lead prosecutor, State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby that upon viewing could reasonably be categorized as blatantly slanted, dishonest, misleading, racist, and extremely dangerous.

Well, that's Fox for you. And if the FCC hasn't done anything yet to go after broadcasters who "intentionally distort the news" -- something forbidden by FCC rules -- there's a good chance it won't be doing anything about this complaint either. And a lot of "intentional distortion" is often in the eye of the beholder. Mosby is definitely aggrieved, but being mad about stuff isn't the same as being right about stuff, especially when the Constitution is on the line.

In my capacity at the States Attorney’s Office, I have noted that the news coverage of the WBFF persistently follows a disconcerting and dangerous pattern: beginning with a slanted, rigged, misleading, or inflammatory headline; followed by a conspiracy theory; and supported with guest commentary from disgruntled ex-employees or political opponents that lend false credibility to their biased coverage or omission of facts.

Whew. Sounds just like any news outlet that has hosts and commentators with axes to grind. Nothing unusual here other than a government figure demanding the federal government start targeting protected speech. And speaking of conspiracy theories, Mosby has one of her own:

Most disturbingly, there appears to be an intentional crusade against State’s Attorney Mosby, which given today’s politically charged and divisive environment, is extremely dangerous.

Mosby also has problems with how often she's being covered by the local Fox affiliate, which is another thing you don't see too many politicians complaining about: too much press.

In 2020, there were 248 stories by the WBFF solely about SA Mosby. In comparison, other local news networks ran significantly fewer stories. When assessed over the same period in 2020, Baltimore City stations did the following: WBAL – 26 stories; WJZ – 46; and WMAR – 10. So far in 2021, the WBFF has run 141 slanted stories.

Looks like a really good use of Baltimore tax dollars: having staffers watch TV to find things for Mosby to complain to the FCC about.

Mosby claims this heated, frequent coverage of her endangers her personally. According to Mosby, the slanted broadcasting -- combined with the station's one-time broadcast of her home address -- has resulted in her receiving multiple death threats and fearing for her safety. How much of this would have happened without WBFF's allegedly unfair coverage is unknown.

The letter then lists a sampling of the "slanted" coverage that Mosby finds so disturbing her office is asking for FCC intervention. And it's a pretty bland list.

Rollout of new policies by Marilyn Mosby needed more collaboration, experts say

Baltimore City State’s Attorney Avoids Oversight

Role Top Prosecutor Plays in Baltimore Violence

Quotes from these offending pieces are also attached and they're equally inoffensive:

It’s been about three weeks since City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby doubled down on her plan to permanently stop prosecuting what she calls “low-level” offenses.

Findings from an Operation: Crime & Justice investigation show City and State watchdog agencies don't audit City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s Office.

Since the riots in 2015, Baltimore City has seen hundreds of lives lost. Sean Kennedy who is a visiting fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute tells Fox45 News, “The State’s Attorney is a crucial player in curbing crime in any jurisdiction.”

Somehow this equates to an assault on the State's Attorney sensibilities and an attack on the right of the people to be able to access "unbiased" news. Somehow this innocuous batch of pretty mild criticism is something that "incites racists to act upon their animus for the State's Attorney."

Mosby wraps the complaint with a paragraph that is inconsistent with everything surrounding it:

To be clear, the State’s Attorney’s Office is not above receiving criticism. We welcome being held accountable, and we support First Amendment freedom of speech. However, what we find troubling, abhorrent, and outright dangerous, is that the distinctly relentless slanted broadcast news campaign, against the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office and its lead prosecutor, has the stench of racism.

The Attorney's Office will only accept criticism that's "unslanted." It will only be held accountable by journalists it considers to be fair. And it fully supports the First Amendment rights of everyone but the broadcasters at WBFF. And, I hate to say it, commentary and opinion with a "stench of racism" is still protected speech.

If Mosby really respects the First Amendment and welcomes criticism, she should simply post this letter -- minus all the stuff requesting action from the FCC -- and let residents draw their own conclusions about WBFF and its coverage of local politics. A government official asking a government agency to open an investigation into a journalistic entity has the stench of censorship.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, baltimore, fcc, free press, free speech, marily mosby, retaliation
Companies: wbff