Free Republic

SOKOTO, NIGERIA – Monday, May 12 marks three years since radical jihadists in Nigeria murdered a 22-year-old Christian woman, and new first hand testimony is shedding light on her final moments. However, the Nigerian Department of State Services detained the three journalists today for about four hours after publishing the new report. Deborah Emmanuel’s story first made international headlines when a violent Muslim mob beat her to death in 2022. Journalists identified her as a victim of a so-called “blasphemy” murder in the capital of Nigeria’s Sokoto state. Judd Saul, the founder of Equipping the Persecuted and executive director of...

Pope Leo XIV urged reporters to do their part in protecting the “precious gift of free speech” in his first address to the media on Monday – and also called on governments around the world to release journalists they have imprisoned. The pope called for an improved model of communication that “does not seek consensus at all costs, does not use aggressive words, does not follow the culture of competition, and never separates the search for truth from the love with which we must humbly seek it.” “The Church must face the challenges posed by the times. In the same...

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Friday the Department of Justice (DOJ) will change the policy that allows journalists to hide records and testimony related to suspects in a criminal investigation. In a memo first obtained by Axios, Bondi wrote that federal employees intentionally leaking sensitive information to the media undermines the ability of the Department of Justice to keep America safe. "This conduct is illegal and wrong, and it must stop," Bondi wrote. "Therefore, I have concluded that it is necessary to rescind Merrick Garland's policies precluding the Department of Justice from seeking records and compelling testimony from members...

President Donald Trump offered prayers for the journalists in the White House briefing room on Thursday, as he addressed the media about Wednesday’s deadly midair collision between a commercial jet and an Army helicopter. Trump began his remarks by asking for a moment of silence, then spoke for several minutes. At the end of his prepared remarks, he concluded: “God bless everyone in this room,” referring to the members of the press corps. It was a far cry from Trump’s usual jabs at the “fake news,” and a sign of the seriousness with which the president and the new administration...

After eight years of prosecuting Sandra Merritt, the California Attorney General’s office agreed to a plea deal to end this criminal case with no prison time and no fines for her role in the undercover journalism and videos that exposed Planned Parenthood’s trade in aborted baby body parts. Before this unprecedented case, the State of California had never criminally prosecuted undercover journalists for surreptitious recordings made in the public interest. Yet, this courageous grandmother was charged with 16 felonies and faced more than 10 years in prison for shining a light on the abortion industry’s profit from illegal organ harvesting...

Journalist Steve Baker of Blaze Media, who captured some of the most dramatic news footage at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been ordered to surrender to federal authorities on Dec. 19 on as-yet-unknown charges.Paramedics from the D.C. Fire and EMS Department perform CPR on protester Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by police near the Speaker's Lobby on Jan. 6, 2021. (Courtesy of Steve Baker)Mr. Baker, whose Jan. 6 videos and photos have appeared on HBO and the BBC, as well as in The New York Times and The Epoch Times, told his followers on X, formerly known...

Journalists failed to ask Democrats for any proof of the bizarre claim that former President Donald Trump intended to reenact an obscure 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden other than the fact that it was in a same building. As Breitbart News noted, Democrats — starting with James Carville, then Hillary Clinton, then vice presidential nominee Tim Walz himself — claimed that Trump’s rally on Sunday evening was intended to evoke Nazi imagery.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the 2024 presidential race makes its turn into the final stretch, the White House assured journalists that they would only have to pretend Kamala Harris is likable for a couple more months. Members of the media, weary from the exhausting duty of portraying Harris as capable, experienced, qualified, and decent, were relieved to find out that they would only have to maintain the ruse until election day. "Don't worry, you don't have to do this forever," one White House insider told reporters. "We just have to make people think she's a bright, likable person until they...

The Treasury Department banned the maker of spyware used to target government officials, reporters and activists, deploying “first-of-its-kind” sanctions against sellers of commercial spyware. The U.S. government deployed sanctions against Greece-based spyware vendor Intellexa on Tuesday and the company’s leadership after targeting U.S. officials. “Today’s actions represent a tangible step forward in discouraging the misuse of commercial surveillance tools, which increasingly present a security risk to the United States and our citizens,” Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson said. The Treasury Department targeted two individuals and five entities associated with Intellexa for their...

Former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson blasted journalists in Washington, D.C. for failing to “hold power accountable” — and participating in a “massive cover-up” with the White House to shield President Biden’s “decline.” “It is our duty to poke through White House smoke screens and find out the truth,” Abramson told Semafor. “The Biden White House clearly succeeded in a massive cover-up of the degree of the President’s feebleness and his serious physical decline, which may be simply the result of old age. “Shame on the White House press corps for not to have [sic] pierced the veil...

I'm old enough to remember the hubbub over JournoList, a listserv of leftist reporters from different news outlets who convened regularly in a chatroom to strategize how to spin stories and set narratives, such as how to torpedo Gov.Sarah Palin to get Barack Obama elected president. From 2007 to 2010, JournoList was its own echo chamber, as Politico put it at the time. Now the same thing's happening again, with TV lawyers acting as rhetorical wetwork teams covering the trials of their political nemesis, Donald Trump. JournoList was started by Ezra Klein, who now works for the New York Times,...

The House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government is currently hosting a hearing on freedom of the press and protecting journalists, as the Biden Regime attempts to infringe on the rights of the press and shape news stories to fit their narrative. Rep Chip Roy opened the hearing at 9:30 am ET, remarking, “Today’s hearing is about defending our fundamental liberty and protecting journalists and their sources from these attacks. We will examine the federal government’s infringement on the freedom of the press and examine the prospects for federal shield law.” Witnesses include investigative journalists Catherine Herridge...

Normally they're the ones grilling Washington power players. But the tables have been turned on the White House press corps.

Blaze Media Investigative Journalist @TPC4USA has now been taken into FBI custody for his J6 reporting. PERP WALKED IN FRONT OF CAMERAS LIKE IN A BANANA REPUBLIC................ VIDEO AT LINK.......................

Outrageous BREAKING: DOJ asks Steve Baker (@TPC4USA) to turn himself in next week to face misdemeanor charges for covering J6 as an independent journalist Baker responds: Game on. Baker should be able to make a good showing of a selective and vindictive prosecution. Steve has been covering the J6 riots and subsequent federal coverup in meticulous detail.

Earlier this week, reports emerged that digital news outlet The Messenger would shut down entirely.. More than 500 journalists lost their jobs in January as multiple outlets shed staff in the face of adverse industry conditions. A report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas highlighted the 528 layoffs across digital, print, and broadcast news media in January. The figure marked a substantial uptick from the 30 layoffs the firm identified the prior month and the highest total since last March's 532. The news industry lost more than 3,087 positions last year, an increase from 1,808 in 2022 and 1,511 in 2021....

We feel strongly that public discussion and civil debate are crucial to our society. We know that you, our readers, know things that we don’t. You come from different backgrounds and have different experiences. We’re all better when we can hear one another and learn from different perspectives. That’s why the USA TODAY Network invested in extensive research and testing with the Center for Media Engagement before deciding to enable comments on our news sites in 2020. But for all their benefits, we also know that comment sections across the internet can quickly devolve when they’re left unmonitored. We wanted...

ROME — Pope Francis warned of the dangers of “Big Data” Wednesday, noting “algorithms are not neutral” and can be used to spread fake news and create groupthink. Artificial intelligence systems can “be a source of ‘cognitive pollution,’ a distortion of reality by partially or completely false narratives, believed and broadcast as if they were true,” the pontiff argues in his 2024 Message for the World Day of Social Communications. The digital revolution can imprison people “in models that nowadays are called ‘echo chambers,’” the pope states, and rather than increasing a “pluralism of information,” they create confusion.

When we think about Trump Derangement Syndrome, what likely first comes to our minds are the totally mental antics of the Trump-obsessed left: we see the ugly liberal fatties screaming in the street while wearing vagina hats; we might think of Rob Reiner, the Hollywood has-been who seems to hourly post on X about how “fascist” Trump is “literally” Hitler; or we uncomfortably remember (while trying to forget) the time that E. Jean Carroll told Anderson Cooper that “some” people think “rape is sexy” in the wake of accusing President Trump (a man behind the show of which she was...

Whoopi Goldberg told her co-hosts Tuesday on ABC’s “The View” that former President Donald Trump will “take all the journalists” and “gay folks” to “disappear” them. Goldberg said, “Beware the media. That voting block has lots of issues they want to address. They do, and they have every right to demand that from whoever the candidate is going to be. But I will say this until it’s time to go vote, beware the media telling us what we’re doing. Only you know what you’re doing. You know what’s upsetting you, and you will discuss it when you go and make...