Free Republic

...Northwestern University received more than $340 million from the country of Qatar from 2012 to 2019 as it operated a campus in the Middle Eastern country and continued a years-long collaboration with Al Jazeera, a media outlet owned by the Qatari government. That’s according to a 2019 Clarion Project report, which found that Al Jazeera and Northwestern University formed a relationship in 2008 when the Qatar Foundation, which the Clarion Project alleges of being linked to terrorism, funded a Northwestern campus in Qatar. Northwestern, one of the top journalism schools in the U.S., partnered with Al Jazeera in an agreement...

"YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO FILM!" is a cry you hear incessantly at protests in Portland, Oregon, always shouted at close range to your face by after-dark demonstrators. You can assert that, yes, you can film; you can point out that they themselves are filming incessantly; you can push their hands away from covering your phone; you can have your phone record them stealing your phone—all of these things have happened to me—and none will have any impact on their contention that "YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO FILM" and its occasional variation, "PHOTOGRAPHY EQUALS DEATH!" I cannot say who came up with...

American media woke up Wednesday to shocking news: the Chinese government announced it would expel three Wall Street Journal journalists based in Beijing: deputy bureau chief Josh Chin and reporter Chao Deng, both U.S. citizens, and reporter Philip Wen, an Australian citizen. The last time China expelled so many foreign journalists from a single Western media organization, Mao Zedong was dictator. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said the expulsion was retaliation for a Wall Street Journal op-ed, “The Real Sick Man of Asia” by Walter Russell Mead. In it, Mead discussed how the Chinese government’s initial response to the coronavirus outbreak...

The flailing 2020 presidential campaign of former Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (D-TX) claimed Wednesday that a staffer ejected Breitbart News senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak from a speech at Benedict College, a historically black college, to protect black students. In a statement Wednesday, O’Rourke’s press secretary, Aleigha Cavalier, attempted to defend against the growing controversy stemming from Pollak’s removal, claiming that while the candidate “believes in the right to a free press,” Breitbart News “walks the line between being news and a perpetrator of hate speech.” “Given this particular Breitbart employee’s previous hateful reporting and the sensitivity of the topics...

President Trump might be openly hostile to the mainstream media, but it was the Obama administration that was engaged in a widespread effort to thwart the media. Which do you think is more harmful to a free press? The full extent of Obama’s actions against the press are only now coming to light. The Columbia Journalism Review reports on a newly released government document showing that the Obama Justice Department engaged in a far more sweeping effort to spy on the Associated Press than previously believed. “In 2013, the Justice Department launched a brazen attack on press freedom,” the CJR...

Professional journalism groups reacted with alarm after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas released an opinion Tuesday urging the high court to reconsider a landmark freedom of the press decision called New York Times v. Sullivan. The Sullivan ruling generally shields reporters and news platforms from libel or defamation lawsuits provided they were acting in good faith. Though journalists believe that protection is essential, Justice Thomas said the high court was wrong to usurp the role of states in regulating libel. “[Sullivan] and the Court’s decisions extending it were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law,” Thomas’s opinion reads. “We should not...

It’s been over a year and a half since Obama left office, but it still bothers me hearing him speak. Between his trying to take credit for the Trump economy and his claim that he, unlike Trump, didn’t “threaten the freedom of the press,” it's hard not to get angry when he speaks because virtually everything he says is a lie. His trying to take credit for Trump's economy was pathetic, but his claim that he was not an enemy of the free press deserves to be called out. “It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t...

The Bad Kid Lollipop Lure White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders should do what some doctors’ offices and other outlets do to keep unruly children in line: keep a good supply of lollipops on hand. When CNN’s Jim Acosta sets out on his next whine fest during a press briefing, Huckabee Sanders should just hold up one of the lollipops from the Sucker Press supply. Cable tv viewers and even Acosta colleagues will get the idea.

America’s mainstream media continues to blow President Trump’s words and threats out of proportion while giving the Obama administration a pass for its actions against press freedom and forgetting Bush’s jailing of a New York Times reporter. Trump’s tweets putting an untrustworthy media in its place are far from “unprecedented.” I’m not pretending Trump is a saint at all. He is far from perfect. Though he has certainly said some alarming things, he has not taken any significant action against the media or attacked the First Amendment in any way. Sure, Trump suggested journalists be sent to jail, as we...

Scientists examined some of the reasons as to why people drink alcohol. Of course, some of these reasons can be personal - a special occasion, habit, outing with a loved one, or Friday evening. However, these are all specific occasions. It is important to consider what a person’s motivation is when they drink during these times. What is it that they want to achieve? This study is not simply about those who are alcoholics. Scientists in this study were interested in the behavior of all drinkers without exception, even if a person drinks only once a year and solely for...

On June 2, 2011, Judicial Watch released documents that show the Obama FCC’s collusion with a radical leftist organization to seize control over the Internet. This investigation caught the eye of congressional leaders, and now it appears a congressional probe of the matter is in the offing. ... The documents we uncovered show that the Obama FCC was deeply involved in discussions with the radical leftist organization Free Press in the run up to the December 2010 FCC vote. How deep? Free Press reached out to the FCC to invite FCC Commissioner Michael Copps to write an op-ed for the...

Following the presidential election, numerous stories surfaced about how “fake news” influenced the results. This prompted a reaction from the media and a concerted effort by the social media giant Facebook to crack down on the phenomenon—announcing that it would in part by using liberal fact-checkers to distinguish the “real” from the “fake” news.The truth is that while the American media landscape has been in a constant state of change over two centuries, the spread of hyperpartisan, scurrilous, and even phony news stories has been more common than uncommon throughout the history of the republic.Ultimately, despite the increasingly Wild West...

There was just a press conference in San Bernadino with local and federal officials. It was originally scheduled hours earlier. They were coming out with what "sources" had implied would be new information . Instead, a few new crime scene photos were offered. Then the press was thanked for their patience. In lieu of one new piece of information, an officer who was first on scene yesterday was asked to give his account of events. It was a compelling story, and worth hearing. HOWEVER, it was not a press conference. Not one bit of information was given. It appears this...

Global warming/climate change hoax In a recent Daily Caller article, Michael Bastach took note of “25 Years of predicting The Global Warming ‘Tipping Point’.” This is the message that the Earth is warming rapidly and, if we don’t abandon the use of fossil fuels for power, it will arrive to wreak destruction on the human race and all life on the planet. It is astounding how many past and present world leaders are telling everyone this despite the total lack of any real science, nor any actual warming—the Earth has been in a natural cooling cycle since 1997! At the...

The Internet regulations the FCC quietly passed last month have finally been disclosed. The LA Times reports: “The FCC’s action was strongly opposed by AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., and other broadband providers as well as most Republicans. AT&T hinted at a likely legal challenge of the regulations Thursday.” Chuck Ross at The Daily Caller cross-referenced the nearly 400 pages of new regulations and found the organization Free Press referenced 46 times, while making the case for the so-called “net neutrality” regulations. He also pointed out who is behind the group: “It has received $2.2 million in donations from progressive...

New internet regulations finally released by the Federal Communications Commission make 46 references to a group funded by billionaire George Soros and co-founded by a neo-Marxist. The FCC released the 400-page document on Thursday, two weeks after it passed new regulations, which many fear will turn the internet into a public commodity and thereby stifle innovation. “Leveling the playing field” in that way has been a clear goal of Free Press, a group dedicated to net neutrality which was founded in 2003. As Phil Kerpen, president of the free-market group American Commitment, first noted, Free Press is mentioned repeatedly in...

The powers behind the FCC’s muscling of the Internet Today’s vote by a bitterly divided Federal Communications Commission that the Internet should be regulated as a public utility is the culmination of a decade-long battle by the Left. Using money from George Soros and liberal foundations that totaled at least $196 million, radical activists finally succeeded in ramming through “net neutrality,” or the idea that all data should be transmitted equally over the Internet. The final push involved unprecedented political pressure exerted by the Obama White House on FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, head of an ostensibly independent regulatory body. “Net...

On Monday, former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson revealed details of a $35 million lawsuit against the Justice Department and the U.S. Postal Service for the alleged hacking of her computers. This led to a new round of snark from Politico’s Dylan Byers, who suggested on Twitter Attkisson was taking the wrong approach: #Realtalk: If you believe U.S. gov hacked your computers this isn’t the way you go about doing it… if you want publicity, on the other hand— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) January 5, 2015 This raises an obvious question. What is the right approach under the circumstances? Sharyl Attkisson pointed...

Over the weekend President Obama issued the following statement in honor of the first-annual International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. "History shows that a free press remains a critical foundation for prosperous, open, and secure societies, allowing citizens to access information and hold their governments accountable. Indeed, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reiterates the fundamental principle that every person has the right “to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Each and every day, brave journalists make extraordinary risks to bring us stories we otherwise would not hear - exposing...

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Reporter was barred from covering a campaign rally Tuesday in Madison for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke and featuring first lady Michelle Obama. Melissa Baldauff, communications director for the state Democratic Party, informed Wisconsin Reporter on Monday it wasn’t allowed to attend the event at the Overture Center because the online publication isn’t a legitimate news source. This marks the second time in about a week the Burke camp has dictated press coverage of a campaign fundraiser in Wisconsin headlined by the first lady. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Meg Kissinger reported White House and Burke staff tried...