SPJ national update II: The Downing Street Memo; it's still not libelous; and unseen pictures, untold stories. Ministers were told in July 2002 that Britain was committed to being part of an American-led invasion of Iraq and that they had no choice but to find a way to make it legal. The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Prime Minister Tony Blair had agreed with President Bush three months earlier to back military action against Saddam Hussein. More here and here and here and here and here. ... The Supreme Court declined to consider whether a fictional Dallas Observer article about a 6-year-old girl getting arrested over a book report libeled two Denton County officials. The Texas Supreme Court had labeled the article clearly satire. More here. ... U.S. newspapers and magazines print few photos of American dead and wounded, the Los Angeles Times asserts. Six prominent papers and the nation's two most popular newsmagazines ran almost no pictures from the war zone of Americans killed in action in a recent six-month period, although 559 Americans and Western allies died during that time. More here.
SPJ national update III: Can't say that in U.S. colleges; can't say that in Iran; and can't say that in China. The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled June 20 that a 1988 Supreme Court decision that lets high schools restrict free speech in student newspapers may also apply to public college and university papers. The case, Hosty v. Carter, involved Governors State University in Illinois. Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center: "I fear it's just a matter of time before a university prohibits a student group from bringing an unpopular speaker to campus or showing a controversial film based on the Hosty decision." More here and here and here. ... Clerics in Iran on June 21 suspended publication of three newspapers because their editors criticized the presidential elections. Three rival campaigns charged that ultraconservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's unexpectedly strong showing of 19.5 percent was orchestrated by Iran's military in concert with a group controlled by hard-line clerics that counted the votes. More here. ... Microsoft's new Chinese internet portal bans some words from parts of its web site to avoid offending Beijing censors. Typing in "democracy" and "freedom" prompts the message: "This item contains forbidden speech. Please delete the forbidden speech from this item." More here.
SPJ national update IV: Patriot pruned; K-State adviser no doubt peeved; and Republicans on the loose at the CPB. Despite a veto threat from President Bush, the House voted 238-187 on June 15 to block the Justice Department and the FBI from using the Patriot Act to see library records and bookstore sales slips. More here. ... A federal judge has dismissed a j-prof's lawsuit charging that administrators fired him as adviser of the Kansas State Collegian because they were unhappy with its content. Ron Johnson was dismissed in May 2004 following campus protests over a perceived lack of coverage of diversity issues. More here. ... Investigators at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are examining $15,000 in payments to two Republican lobbyists that were not disclosed to the CPB board. The investigators are also examining $14,170 paid to a man who provided the corporation's Republican chairman, Kenneth Tomlinson, with reports about the political leanings of guests on the "Now" program when Bill Moyers hosted it. And an association of news ombudsmen has rejected an attempt by two CPB ombudsmen to join as full members, questioning their independence. More here and here.
SPJ national update V: Tighter ownership rules withheld; the two Deep Throat stories you missed; and standing up forces standdown. The Supreme Court on June 13 rejected media groups' appeals that sought to restore new federal rules easing ownership restrictions. The proposed changes would allow a single company to own TV stations and a newspaper in the same area, and to own more TV and radio stations in a single market. More here. ... FBI agent Mark Felt was, at heated moments during the scandal, in charge of finding the source of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's Watergate scoops. In a twist worthy of John le Carré, Deep Throat was assigned the mission of unearthing Deep Throat. And Paul Daly, who joined the bureau in 1965, says he learned in 1978 that Felt was Deep Throat and that at least three other FBI officials helped him secretly disclose information about the Watergate investigation to The Washington Post. More here and here. ... The fallout from an Arvada, Colo., teen's investigative piece for his school paper is one reason Army recruiters nationwide decided to "stand down" for a refresher class in ethics. David McSwane never thought his story would get so big when he gave his 15-year-old friend a camcorder, his 11-year-old sister a still camera and enlisted his mother to keep him out of legal hot water. When McSwane was finished, Army recruiters in Golden had been caught encouraging him to make a fake high school diploma and accompanying him to a head shop to buy him a drug detox kit. More here and here.
