Accomplishments

October 2022: Professors RonNell Andersen Jones from the University of Utah School of Law and Sonja R. West from the University of Georgia School of Law discussed their research on U.S. Supreme Court attitudes about press freedom in a talk titled “The Supreme Court and Freedom of the Press.” Center Director Anthony Fargo moderated the discussion, which was conducted on Zoom. The Barbara Restle Press Law Project provided funding for the speakers.

August 2021: Center Director Anthony L. Fargo presented a paper, “Perilous in Seattle: The Dangers of Covering Protests and Implications for the Journalist’s Privilege,” in a Law and Policy Division session at the AEJMC National Convention online. The paper was completed with help from a research assistant funded by the Barbara Restle Press Law Project. The paper was named the Second Place Faculty Paper in the Law and Policy Division’s research paper competition.

June 2021: Center Director Anthony L. Fargo spoke to about 40 journalists, activists, educators, and students in Dhaka, Bangladesh, through Zoom. The talk, titled “Freedom of Expression: U.S. and Global Perspectives,” explored freedom of expression issues with legacy and new media. The talk was arranged through the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka through the U.S. State Department’s U.S. Speaker Program, which recruits American experts to engage international audiences on topics of strategic importance to the United States. A Q and A followed the talk.

May 2021: Assistant Professor Jason Peifer and Ph.D. student Jared Meisinger published “The Value of Explaining the Process: How Journalistic Transparency and Perceptions of News Media Importance Can (Sometimes) Foster Message Credibility and Engagement Intentions” in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. Funding for Meisinger’s initial participation in the project as a research assistant was provided by the Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

April 2021: Center Director Anthony L. Fargo published “The End of the Affair: Can the Relationship Between Journalists and Sources Survive Mass Surveillance and Aggressive Leak Prosecutions?” in Communication Law & Policy. The article’s completion was aided by a research assistant funded by the Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

December 2020: Center Director Anthony Fargo published “Stewart, Potter. `Or Of the Press,’ 26 Hastings L. J. 631 (1975)” in Communication Law & Policy. The invited essay was part of a special issue devoted to influential law-review articles about communication law. The essay was completed with help from a research assistant funded by the Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

August 2020: Center Director Anthony L. Fargo presented a paper, “The End of the Affair: Can the Relationship Between Journalists and Sources Survive Mass Surveillance and Aggressive Leak Prosecutions?” in a Law and Policy Division session at the AEJMC National Convention online. The paper was completed with help from a research assistant funded by the Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

August 2020: Noah Arjomand, the Mark Helmke Postdoctoral Scholar on Global Media, Development and Democracy at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at IU, completed a video titled “Jammu & Kashmir: One year of internet throttling and media restrictions.” The video examines India’s media policies in two regions of the country. The video is publicly available on AccessNow’s YouTube channel. It was produced with assistance from the Barbara Restle Press Law Project and in partnership with AccessNow, the Center for International Media Assistance, and the Software Freedom Law Center.

July 2020: Assistant Professor Jason Peifer published “Warring With the Press: The influence of Elite Hostility, Emotions, and Perceptions of News Media Importance on Support for Journalism” in Journalism Studies. The article was completed with help from a research assistant funded by the Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

June 2020: Noah Arjomand, the Mark Helmke Postdoctoral Scholar on Global Media, Development and Democracy at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at IU, completed a four-part video series titled “Internet Governance and Journalism.” Episodes include “The Right to Be Forgotten,” “Encryption,” “Zero-Rating,” and “Sustainability.” The video series, primarily funded by the National Endowment for Democracy’s Center for International Media Assistance, is available on NED’s YouTube channel and Films on Demand. The Barbara Restle Press Law Project provided funding for additional animators to complete the project. Dr. Arjomand has collected the short films on a playlist.

March 2020: A half-day conference, “Media Law and Policy in the Digital Age: Global Challenges and Opportunities,” was held in the Franklin Hall Commons. Students from all academic units at IU were invited to submit papers for a peer-reviewed competition. Papers were reviewed by faculty members at other institutions recruited by Center Director Anthony Fargo. Monetary awards were offered for the top papers. Four students – Taylor Belinske from the Maurer School of Law; master’s student Violet Baron from The Media School; Ph.D. student Allison Brown from the Media School; and undergraduate Lauren Fischer from the Media School – presented their papers. Noah Arjomand, the Mark Helmke Postdoctoral Scholar on Global Media, Development and Democracy at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, also presented a project he was working on to develop short animated films about global media issues through funding from CIMLAPS and the Center for International Media Assistance. The luncheon speaker was David Greene, senior staff attorney and civil liberties director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Funding was provided by the Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

October 2019: Doug Haddix, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors; Kathleen Kiely, the Lee Hills Chair in Free-Press Studies at the University of Missouri School of Journalism; and Ron Nixon, international investigations editor for the Associated Press, participated in a panel discussion titled “The Julian Assange Case: A Threat to Journalists?” Center Director Anthony Fargo moderated. The panel was funded through the Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

August 2019: Center Director Anthony Fargo presented a paper, “Past Imperfect: Packingham, Public Forums, and Tensions Between Media Law’s Present and Internet Regulation’s Future” at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The paper was written with the help of research assistants funded by the Restle Project.

April 2019: Assistant Professor Jason Peifer hosted a community forum in Bedford as part of his “Making the News: A Community Conversation” project. Members of the public attended a full day of programming that included engagement with journalists in a program designed to measure and influence public perceptions of the news media. An undergraduate research assistant provided administrative support and two other undergraduates produced a video profile of journalists and news organizations in southern Indiana, which was screened at the event. The three students’ work was funded by the Barbara Restle Press Law Project. A second community forum was held in Bloomington in February 2020.

April 2019: Center Director Anthony Fargo published “Protecting Journalists’ Sources Without a Shield: Four Proposals,” in the spring 2019 edition of Communication Law and Policy. This was the second scholarly article written with help from research assistants funded by the Restle Project.

March 2019: Center Director Anthony Fargo published “A Federal Shield Law That Works: Protecting Sources, Fighting Fake News, and Confronting Modern Challenges to Effective Journalism” in the Journal of International Media & Entertainment Law, the first scholarly article produced through research assistance funded by the Barbara Restle Press Law Project. Several other projects by Media School and Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies researchers are being supported in part by assistants funded by the Restle Project.

February 2019: Lee Williams, an attorney for CNN, and Mike Tackett, a correspondent with The New York Times, did a panel discussion with Center Director Anthony Fargo on “Enemies of the Press” in Franklin Hall at IU. The panel discussed the effects of anti-press rhetoric prevalent since the 2016 election. The Barbara Restle Press Law Project sponsored the event.

July 2018: Assistant Professor Gerry Lanosga presented a paper, “Media Agenda Building and the Freedom of Information Act,” at the conference 50 Years of Agenda Setting Research: Past and Future Perspectives at the University of Colorado. He was aided by a research assistant funded by the Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

March 2018: Professor Gerry Lanosga and Center Director Anthony Fargo co-hosted an all-day workshop in Indianapolis on access to government-held information. Approximately 60 journalists and other citizens attended the workshop, which included panel discussions and hands-on sessions with prominent journalists and activists. The Indiana Coalition for Open Government co-sponsored the event with the Center and the Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

February 2018: Diane Foley, director of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation; Thomas Durkin, the Foundation’s director of programs; and Jon Racek, a senior lecturer in IU’s School of Art, Architecture and Design and friend of James Foley, took part in a panel discussion after a screening of a documentary about James Foley, a freelance journalist who was kidnapped in Syria and later executed on video by ISIS. The Foundation, founded by Mrs. Foley, James Foley’s mother, supports families of Americans taken hostage overseas and freelance journalists working in conflict zones. The panel discussion and screening were a joint venture of several Media School student organizations and the Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

January 2018: Center Director Anthony Fargo did a Q and A in Franklin Hall at IU with Jamie Kalven, director of the Invisible Institute in Chicago and the journalist who first called attention to the Laquan McDonald shooting by Chicago police, eventually leading to the arrest and conviction of a police officer. Mr. Kalven also spoke to Media School classes and was interviewed on WFIU. His visit was funded by the Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

November 2017: Center Director Anthony Fargo was a panelist for “The Journalist’s Privilege for Confidential Sources: Revisiting Branzburg v. Hayes Forty-Five Years Later,” at the National Communication Association annual conference in Dallas, Texas. Branzburg remains the U.S. Supreme Court’s only ruling on whether journalists have a right to protect the names of their confidential sources.

November 2017: Center Director Anthony Fargo did a question-and-answer session with Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for the Washington Post, in Franklin Hall at IU as part of the Media School Speaker Series and the Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

November 2017: Center Director Anthony Fargo spoke at the opening keynote session of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce Fall meeting at the Indianapolis Convention Center, with Paul Farhi of the Washington Post, about the relationship between President Trump and the press.

June 2017: Director Anthony Fargo moderated a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., “Building a Better Watchdog.” The event was supported by The Center’s Barbara Restle Press Law Project.

May 2017: Director Anthony Fargo moderated a panel discussion on the impact of recent political events on the international influence of the First Amendment. The panel session, “Does That Banner Yet Wave?” was part of the International Press Institute’s world congress in Hamburg, Germany.

February 2017: The Center launched the Barbara Restle Press Law Project to expand the study of confidential source protections and the Freedom of Information Act. The project was made possible by a $100,000 gift from alumna Barbara (Blackledge) Restle.

October 2015: Director Anthony Fargo spoke on a panel at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication International Regional Conference in Santiago, Chile, discussing “the right to be forgotten.”

June 2015: Director Anthony Fargo was one of 20 experts from around the world invited to participate in a meeting with David Kaye, the United Nations special rapporteur for freedom of opinion and expression, in Vienna. Kaye was seeking advice on a report he was preparing for the U.N. General Assembly about the need for protections for confidential sources and whistleblowers.

October 2014: A report by IU Ph.D. student Kyle Heatherly, CIMLAPS Director Anthony Fargo, and DePaul University professor Jason Martin (IU Ph.D. 2012) on the global legal protection for anonymous online speech and best practices of media organizations in dealing with anonymous online comments was presented to the International Press Institute in Vienna, which published the report on its website.

May 2013: Director Anthony Fargo was a speaker on a panel at the International Press Institute World Congress in Amman, Jordan, discussing criminal libel in the global perspective.

March 2013: The International Press Institute publicly credits the Center’s reports on criminal defamation laws in Caribbean nations with helping to change laws in some of the countries that were the subjects of reports critical of their laws.

February-March 2013: Center Director Anthony Fargo wrote a series of reports comparing the criminal libel laws in the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago with developing international standards on free expression and presents the reports to the International Press Institute in Vienna, which was in the midst of a campaign to persuade Caribbean nations to amend or abolish their criminal libel laws.

October 2012: IU graduate student A.Jay Wagner and Center Director Anthony Fargo present a report to the International Press Institute about the status of criminal libel law in the United States.

October 2012: The Center organized a panel discussion in Chicago observing the 40th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Branzburg v. Hayes decision regarding confidential news sources. Co-sponsors included the Union League Club and DePaul University’s College of Communication. Speakers included Center Director Anthony Fargo, Brigham Young University law professor RonNell Andersen Jones, DePaul University professor Jason Martin, and Charles Tobin, media attorney and chair of the Holland & Knight Media Practice Team based in Washington, D.C.

July 2012: Hosted a seminar on Indiana access-to-information laws at the IU School of Journalism. The seminar was organized and presented by representatives of the Indiana Attorney General’s Office, the Indiana Public Access Counselor’s Office, and the Hoosier State Press Association.

June 2012: Director Anthony Fargo attended the International Press Institute’s annual World Congress in Trinidad and Tobago to present a summary of the findings of a study on criminal libel law in the United States. The report by IU doctoral student A. Jay Wagner and Fargo is part of IPI’s crusade to persuade Caribbean countries to abolish their criminal libel laws.