Pounding Beers in a Shed, and Other Dispatches from the War on Free Speech

Last episode we discussed the campaign to overturn the Supreme Court decision that protects reporters’ ability to criticize and investigate people in power.

But even with that decision still in place, reporter David Enrich has discovered a shocking wave of legal attacks that is being waged on journalists in towns and cities across the country. These are often reporters at tiny, local outlets, trying to hold people accountable in their communities. 

And these legal claims don’t even have to succeed - and they frequently don’t - to shut down reporters.

Plus, Brian waxes poetic about the first amendment, under the night sky. 

This is part two of our series about David Enrich’s reporting from his book “Murder the Truth”. Listen to part one first – it’s called “Freedom of the press is great, until you’re the target.” 

In our newsletter this week – Brian tells a personal story about how his lawyers helped him fend off a legal threat. Check that out at:  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?”