PEN America Welcomes House Passage of the Build Back Better Act
Build Back Better Act would boost local newsroom budgets More
The PEN Pod: On NSO Group Accountability, Payroll Credit for Compensation of Local News Journalists, and Eliminating Facial Recognition Technology from Facebook
“People are unmoored in terms of where to get credible information, and local news really used to fill that void and be a kind of informational anchor for people.” More
Alert Us
Are you an artist at risk or know someone who is?
PEN America On 
“When we read these books... everyone is in agreement that (they) are very educational and should be allowed in our classrooms,” says Vandegrift High School Banned Book Club co-founder Alyssa Hoy. "They start very tough conversations that need to be had.” https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/how-teens-are-pushing-back-on-book-bans
A teacher in Florida wanted to inspire Black children with pictures of Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Colin Powell and George Washington Carver.
He has resigned because, he alleges, a district employee removed the pictures as "age inappropriate."
https://www.pnj.com/story/news/local/escambia-county/2022/08/10/escambia-county-florida-teacher-said-pictures-black-american-leaders-removed-his-class/10276112002
This is the best summary of the alarming obscenity case to be heard Aug 30 in VA. Succinct, informative, historical. This is a "salvo" to test First Amendment defenses as @dankois notes persuasively. Read the whole thing. From @Slate: https://slate.com/culture/2022/08/book-banning-republicans-gender-queer-obscenity-supreme-court.html
