Freedom of the press is great, until you're the target

For decades, a Supreme Court decision called New York Times vs Sullivan was widely beloved by people across the political spectrum. Hailed as a decision that gave the first amendment teeth and made our country great.

But recently, under our noses, some of the same people who once sang its praises have turned against it. 

The story of the growing movement that is trying to get the Supreme Court to overturn one of the strongest protections for speech and the press in America.

This is part one of a two part series about the book Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful, by Times investigative editor David Enrich.

Sign up for our newsletter here to hear about one of Brian’s own legal battles: www.kcrw.com/questioneverything

“Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory.

Reporter Brian Reed re-examines everything about journalism, the profession he thought he knew. In the middle of making his second hit podcast, Brian got sued. Accused. Told the biggest story of his career — the Peabody Award-winning series S-Town — wasn’t journalism. Which meant he had to spend years proving that it was. Obsessing over the question, “What is journalism, anyway?”