From the start, the medium of communication and the means of employment have not mattered. Since that founding meeting, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has been just what its name implies - an organization dedicated first to the interests of the reporter. On a Sunday afternoon in March 1970, a group of journalists and media lawyers, concerned over FBI attempts to find the sources for journalists’ reports on radical groups, gathered at Georgetown University to create an organization that would be available around the clock to provide legal assistance to any working reporter, anywhere in the United States, without charge. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Pressįunding for this publication provided by: Gannett Foundation and The Scheide Fund.Ĭongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. - The First Amendment
