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DARE To Be Informed

PEN America’s take on the most pressing threats to free expression

U.S.

Trump Ends the Presidential Press Conference As We Know It
What seems plain in retrospect is that Trump has no intention to use presidential press conferences the way his predecessors have employed them.
NEW YORK MAGAZINE

Colorado Newspaper Vows Defamation Suit After State Senator’s ‘Fake News’ Tweet
Jay Seaton, in a column published Saturday in The Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction, Colorado, called the insult “a false character assassination that can’t go unchallenged.”
FORBES

Why these librarians are protesting Trump’s executive orders
“Libraries Are For Everyone.” That’s the message of a series of images created by Rebecca McCorkindale in the days after President Donald Trump announced the temporary travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries. She never expected her signs of inclusion to go further than a handful of libraries.
PBS 

Global

Ahmed Naji: ‘Prison made me believe in literature more’ *PEN Case List
Egyptian novelist Ahmed Naji is best known internationally for being imprisoned for the sexual content and drug references in his novel The Use of Life, in a society where these subjects remain largely taboo. He does, however, take solace from being the latest in an international line of literary outlaws.
THE GUARDIAN

Prominent Turkish journalist sentenced to jail for ‘terror propaganda’
Prominent Turkish journalist Hasan Cemal has been convicted on charges of conducting “terror propaganda” due to a 2016 article regarding one of the leading figures of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), receiving a suspended sentence of one year, three months in jail.
HURRIYET DAILY NEWS

Cameroon’s Internet Blackout Continues
Parts of Cameroon’s English-speaking regions have been hit by a damaging Internet shutdown that is now entering its fifth week.
IT NEWS AFRICA

Fake news charges emotionally driven Jakarta election
Anti-Islam conspiracies and Chinese invasion fears spread online in Indonesia as the upcoming election floods the internet with fake news.
NIKKEI ASIAN REVIEW

 
Deeper Analysis

Journalists, Battered and Groggy, Find a Renewed Sense of Mission
The news cycle begins at sunrise, as reporters hear the ping of a presidential tweet, and ends sometime in the overnight hours. In consequence and velocity, the political developments of the past four weeks are jogging memories of momentous journalistic times.
NEW YORK TIMES

Protecting Eastern European Journalists, Before It’s Too Late
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has voiced concerns about the lack of progress in investigating the death of prominent journalist Pavel Sheremet, who was murdered in Kyiv last summer. Considered one of the founders of modern Belarusian journalism, many believe his death to have been connected with recent investigations by him.
TRANSITIONS ONLINE

Deconstructing the ‘Liberal Campus’ Cliche
Uniformly labeling higher education as a community of hypersensitive, radical leftists is not only a false portrayal, but also undermines intellectualism.
THE ATLANTIC

 

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