This episode originally aired on Sept. 23, 2026.
The Toledo Blade newspaper will close after 191 years if a buyer isn’t found.
Former sister paper The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was saved from a similar fate earlier this year.
There’s been a seismic shift in the print media landscape, but social media is only partly to blame, as some of the damage is self-inflicted.
As newspapers fold and trained reporters lose their jobs, what happens to journalism’s role as The Fourth Estate in holding those in power to account?
Guests:
- Dee Drummond, senior lecturer, University of Toledo/former reporter, The Toledo Blade
- Dan Kennedy, journalism professor, Northeastern University
- Michael Berry, attorney specializing in The First Amendment
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. In early September, Block Communications made a surprising announcement. After nearly 191 years, the Toledo Blade would close on December 31st, unless a buyer came forward. The news reverberated in Toledo and beyond. Local news station WTOL gathered reactions at Toledo City Council meeting. Here is Councilwoman Cerssandra McPherson reacting to the news.
Cerssandra McPherson: The things that the blade does for the community and for the city of Toledo. It's gonna be a big hit and how do we, you know, the big building that we have downtown, what do we do with that building?
Juravich: Someone who has worked in that building is Dee Drummond, a senior lecturer in the Department of Communications and Media at the University of Toledo. Prior to teaching, she worked at the award-winning journalist at the Toledo Blade, as well as other papers. And she joins us now. Welcome to All Sides Dee.
Dee Drummond: Thanks Amy, thanks so much for having me.
Juravich: So here in central Ohio, the news of the blade possibly closing by year's end took us by surprise. What are the thoughts there in Toledo? Like what was your reaction when you heard this announcement?
Drummond: Well, I was I was a bit shocked and saddened You know less than a year ago the blade made the decision to move everyone out of the historic building Which is like a focal point of downtown and they began working from home but I didn't anticipate this and I think one thing that probably shares the sentiment of how people are feeling. I was at a press club awards ceremony a couple of weeks ago and what shocked me was as everyone was receiving their awards from different medias, how solemn they were. There was a sadness there. And these are people who the blade would compete against, but all of a sudden it's this understanding that there's a major institution, a pillar of the community. That possibly may be gone.
Juravich: Well, given that a similar announcement was made by Block Communications in March, that they would close the Pittsburgh Post Gazette unless a buyer was found, were people in Toledo perhaps bracing for an announcement like this? I mean, could they see the writing on the wall?
Drummond: I really don't think so. I do not think even the reporters that I've talked with, I don't they anticipated this.
Juravich: They thought blocked communications would hold on to Toledo even though they were letting Pittsburgh go. Yeah.
Drummond: You know, the Black family is from Toledo. As you know, they've owned the paper for, I think, 100 years now. There's a continuity. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette was added much later. So yeah, I think that folks in the area kind of thought, you know it's always gonna be here.
Juravich: Well, in the case of the Post-Gazette, a new owner was found in time. The new owner is Venetoulos Institute for Local Journalism, a nonprofit. They also own the Baltimore Banner. Do you know much about them, this nonprofit for local journalism?
Drummond: I don't. I was just so happy that they stepped forward to buy the Gazette, and I do know that the people who work for the Blade now are hoping that there'll be a similar sort of savior come forward.
Juravich: Yeah. Okay. Well, no one's come forward yet, but that announcement for the post-gazette came maybe like a week before. So there's still time between now and December. Tell us about your time at the Blade. You were there from 1998 to 2001. I mean, give us a sense of the history, the newspaper's role in the community. Just tell me a little about working there.
Drummond: Yeah, certainly. Well, when I came there, I was thrilled because I was in grad school in another state, and I was so happy to come back to my hometown to be able to report. And at that time, it was still the heyday of journalism. The Black family had always invested a lot of resources for end-up stories, things that a lot of other papers didn't do. You know, they I was looking this up last night, they formally started in 1835, two years before Toledo became a city. And so it's sort of like the paper has grown up with the city. You know, sometimes I think people love to hate their local paper. But then when it's going to go away, it's like, okay, well, what replaces this? Yeah.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about the future of the Toledo Blade in local journalism. And we're talking with Dee Drummond, senior lecturer in the Department of Communications and Media at the University of Toledo. And she's also a former Toledo blade reporter. Block Communications cited years of financial losses in its announcement. It did not connect those losses to the ongoing contract dispute with the Toleto News Guild. But in August, the union members voted by a nearly two-to-one margin to reject a two-year contract offering from the company. It would have cut their severance in half. It would've okayed giving their work to AI, among other outsourcing. So here is Lillian King, the bargaining chair of the union. And she had this to say to WTOL upon the news of the possible closure.
Lillian King: This is not because of the negotiations. The guild compromised and compromised and compromised. The guild has been compromising since the late 90s. You know, we've been through two and a half decades of concessionary bargaining in which the guild has said, okay, we understand that you need this. The guild took nine percent wage cuts in the late 2000s in order to keep the blade going. So the idea that that we haven't compromised is just, it's not true.
Juravich: So, Dee, what's your reaction to all that that you just heard about the union bargaining? If the owner says they didn't have enough money to operate, but the union says they can't take any more cuts, I mean, how could anyone get past that impasse?
Drummond: And I think that's what it is. I think the family has hung on as long as they could. I know the reporters have gone many years with no pay increase, and even as Lillian said, pay cuts. It seems to me that the economic times and the reality of where news is now and where advertising has gone, which is online, has finally just made it not economically feasible for the blacks to keep running a family newspaper. And it's sad. It's unfortunate.
Juravich: Yeah, I mean, and would you say that now that the announcement has been made that they're going to close, like, I mean, it sounds like the union couldn't, wouldn't even like respond with, okay, you know, we'll take a pay cut, like or, or we'll give up half our severance now, you know, now, now that that ultimatum was there, it's like, that won't work, just not as impractical, right?
Drummond: Yeah, I talked with one of the editors there who's a friend before the vote and, you know, he was very hopeful that it would go through, but I can't, you know, I can speak for them. They have bills to pay, families to support, and I just, I think it's a sign of where the journalistic model is right now, and there just still hasn't been, at least for local papers, they haven't found a sustainable model that can support a publication. Yeah.
Juravich: I will say we reached out to the Toledo Blades executive editor Kim Bates, who declined at this time to be a guest on the show. We also reached out the Union President Mac Arnold and didn't hear back. We also placed two calls inviting Block Communications to join the show and didn't hear back, so this is part of the statement read by Jody Meals, Block Communications President and Chief Operating Officer at the time of the announcement from earlier in September. It says Block Communications Board of Directors and the Block family are truly disappointed to have reached this point. Unfortunately, the realities facing local journalism have left us in this situation. So looking at that announcement now through your lens, now that you're a senior lecturer in the Department of Communications and Media at the University of Toledo, like are newspapers becoming obsolete?
Drummond: Well, I certainly, I think you mentioned at the beginning, we've lost what, 3,500 have folded. A lot of them have gone out and are going out of business. The large ones certainly are doing fine. Maybe this is your next question. I do not think journalism is going away. I think there will always be a need to have verified truthful information provided to the public. But as I said before, I don't think. Local papers have found a way to economically sustain what they've been doing. I just think we're in a changing environment and it's finally caught up with them.
Juravich: Yeah. Well, and I wanted to ask you about AI and journalism, because that's a contentious issue, and that was a part of these new union negotiations, too. Block communication seems to want to use more AI, and the union said no during its bargaining. As an example, another example from Ohio, Cleveland.com's editor, Chris Quinn, made some waves earlier this year because he was unapologetic for his decision to let AI chat bots write certain news stories. So that his human reporters could then hit the streets and gather news and do other stories. So using AI is kind of a new age rewrite desk now. And clearly this was a sticking point. This was an issue for the union, having AI replace some reporters. So what are your thoughts as your time as a reporter, lecturing, you're studying journalism, teaching it. What do you think of AI in the future of journalism?
Drummond: That's a loaded question. I had actually hoped that I could avoid dealing with AI while I was still teaching. And then I quickly learned that it was coming on quickly. So I've done a little bit with it. I don't think, I'm not a fan of having AI replace journalists. I think there may be a role for AI in newsrooms, just like in business. But I think while AI might be able to. Kick a story out, but it can't do, is replace the responsibility and the verification of information that journalists bring to their work. So I do not see it as replacing, I'm not a fan of that, but I see it could be one resource in a newsroom.
Juravich: Talk to me about communities like Toledo staying informed in the void. So if the Toledo blade does close Does Toledo have other local news outlets? I've mentioned WTOL a couple of times a local TV station. What are there other? Smaller papers or like online only type things. I Do believe that the public media station in Toledo doesn't have a local news department. So yeah. Yeah
Drummond: Yeah, we have the local television stations. In terms of print and online, there is a fairly new alternative publication that is funded by nonprofits and has a very small staff. And I don't think it can substitute the vast distribution of information that came from a paper like The Blade. It is, it's there to pick up. Some of it, but I don't think it will replace it. Truthfully, if the paper shuts down, I think it's going to be an enormous void in the community.
Juravich: Well, a couple of city council members mentioned in that interview with WTOL that they emphasize how newspapers are a lifeline for older residents, especially how to stay connected, reading local news, reading obituaries. So what about that sense of connection? Do you agree with that part?
Drummond: Absolutely. I think, you know, the Blade has documented this community, actually Northwestern Ohio, not just Toledo, for nearly 100 years. It's documenting history. It is a vital part of the community. It has become an institution itself, along with reporting on institutions. And this is probably a good example. We just had a lady who had worked at the Blade for about 50 years as a futures writer. And then she started doing a personal column. She was older. And she had such a following with senior citizens that she continued writing her column up until days before she passed, which was recently. So I think that speaks to people have connected over the years, at least the older generation. Now the younger generation, I'm not sure they even know what a newspaper looks like anymore.
Juravich: Yeah, and to that point, social media is taking up the slack, you know. Younger people are getting their news from social media. They're not going to the Blade. You know, maybe, maybe they follow the Toledo Blade's Facebook or Instagram account. But for the most part, they're scrolling on their device and that's the news. What do you think about that future?
Drummond: Well, I think it's absolutely true. I was looking up, Pew Research had a study that said 18 to 29 year old, now we're getting 76% of their news slash information from social media. And that includes influencers. And I know that from my students. I start on day one saying, so where do you get your news from? And they kind of look at me like, what is news? Because to them, it's, It's information and they don't seek it out. It finds them because they're on social media. And there is more information out there for people than ever, as you know. And, you know, the challenge I face in teaching and I think the challenge in general is trying to educate students and the public on the need to verify what they see on social media, the need know how to confirm information and not just take it as the gospel truth. And that's a growing challenge.
Juravich: We've been talking about the future of journalism and the future of the Toledo Blade with Dee Drummond, a senior lecturer in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Toledo. And she's a former Toledo blade reporter. Thank you so much for your time today, Dee. Thank you Amy. And coming up, it's not just the Toledo Blade facing an uncertain future. Newspapers are closing, downsizing and pivoting to survive. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Do you know how many newspapers have folded over the last two decades? It's 3,500. The latest on the brink, the Toledo Blade, a community fixture for more than 190 years. The owners recently issued an ultimatum, find a new buyer or close. And it's been rough out there for print journalism and newspapers. Tracking the changes across the U.S. Is Northeastern University Journalism Professor Dan Kennedy. He's the co-author with Ellen Clegg of the book, "What Works in Community News, Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate." The two also co-host a podcast called "What Works? The Future of Local News" from the university's School of Journalism and the Center for Transformative Media. Welcome back to All Sides Dan.
Dan Kennedy: Thanks for having me, Amy.
Juravich: All right, so given the number of newspaper closures over the last 20 years, the news about the Toledo Blade may be breaking news in the Toleto community, but it's kind of the same old story you've been watching unfold, right?
Kennedy: Well, it is. I mean we've seen this happen to a lot of newspapers, unfortunately, and the Blade, as you know, is owned by the Block family, which really did exactly the same thing with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette earlier this year. They threatened to close it unless they could find a buyer, and fortunately in that case a buyer was found. I certainly hope that's the case for the out.
Juravich: We just talked with a former Blade reporter and she said that talking to her old friends who work there, they knew what happened in Pittsburgh. But the people who work at the Blade didn't think the same thing would happen there because the Block family owned the Blade first. They were from Toledo, their family like born and raised there kind of thing. So they just thought that they would hold on to the Blade, you know, like they were getting rid of the post-gazette but the Blade would be fine. Are you surprised by that? Or do you think they should have seen this coming?
Kennedy: Well, I mean, it all depends on the finances, right? And the folks at the Blade are saying that the Block family has lost millions of dollars in recent years, and that's just something that they can't sustain forever. There are ways forward to reach sustainability, but either the Blocks have not implemented any of those ways, or it just doesn't work in Toledo. I hope it's not the case that it just doesn't work in Toledo. I think there are things they could have tried.
Juravich: Yeah, give me an example. I mean, what kind of things do you think that they should have tried?
Kennedy: Well, there's nothing very sexy about it. The large regional papers that have succeeded have done it by convincing their readers to pay for the journalism they're getting. And one of the ways that they have done that is by giving their readers a good journalistic product so that they feel that it's worth paying for. So we've seen this with the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer. The Minnesota Star Tribune. And can it work everywhere? I'm not sure, but I'm hoping that someone will step forward in Toledo and give it a try there.
Juravich: Well, give us a refresher on why newspapers are having such a rough time of making it a go. I mean, there's obviously more people getting their news from social media, less subscribers, but it's mainly the less ad revenue, because their old business model just doesn't work, right?
Kennedy: Well, that's right. And I mean, this is a 20-year-old story at this point. The internet really destroyed the value of newspaper advertising, both the classified ads that used to bring in enormous amount of money and the display ads for everything else, banks, restaurants, whatever. And that did not make a good transition to digital, Especially since Facebook and Google started hoovering up all of the... Available ad revenue online. This is something that newspaper owners have known and have been trying to deal with, as I said, for the better part of two decades. And at this point, any newspaper owner that hasn't figured out the reader revenue side of the equation is gonna find themselves in a terrible situation. I say that, I have to confess. Not knowing what steps the blocks may have taken on the reader revenue side of the equation, but whatever it is, it certainly hasn't been enough.
Juravich: Earlier this month, the McClatchy, the newspaper chain that owns the Miami Herald, the Sacramento Bee, 28 other papers, made deep newsroom cuts. And the chain's executive vice president for local news, Greg Farmer, had said it very bluntly in an email. He said, we cannot continue investing where subscribers' interest does not support the investment. So is subscribing for digital content just not workable? It's not a viable business model.
Kennedy: It's completely workable in a number of markets. The newspapers that I cited, they're not making that money from print. They're making it from digital subscriptions. I was talking with somebody yesterday who told me that McClatchy had held its local news spending even for the past five years, and that apparently they're quite impressed with themselves for doing that. Well, if you look at inflation over the past five years That means that they've cut local news spending by about 20%. McClatchy is owned by a private equity firm, Chatham Asset Management, and such companies are known for just cutting their news product to the bone and trying to squeeze out whatever revenues they can before walking away. And that seems to be what's happening with McClatchy, unfortunately.
Juravich: So you're basically saying that the examples that you gave, what you said Philadelphia, Boston, those papers are investing in local news, making good product that people click on it and they wanna read it, because it's good and so they subscribe, but then somewhere like Miami or Sacramento isn't doing that.
Kennedy: Not to the same extent, no. Now, I mean, I will confess, Boston and Philadelphia may just be better news markets. We may have an engaged citizenry that still cares about local news to a greater extent than some other cities. But a chain like McClatchy, I don't think they've even tried. Remember, McClatschy in the last year or so closed their Washington bureau. Now, the McClatchy Washington Bureau is kind of legendary because their predecessor, Chain Knight Ritter, was the only Washington Bureau in the country that covered the run-up to the war in Iraq, if you want to go back many years ago, with the proper degree of skepticism and toughness. And now that's just gone.
Juravich: You mentioned earlier the the block family owned another paper the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It was Toledo's sister paper back then and said that it would close if a new owner wasn't found. The new owner stepped forward. It's a nonprofit named Venetoulos Institute for Local Journalism. They also own the Baltimore banner. Do you know any more about them? Like these nonprofits, these nonprofit institutes making it, how are they making it go financially?
Kennedy: Well, the Baltimore Banner is the one of the largest and most admired digital nonprofit startups that there is. It's truly kind of a replacement product for the Baltimore Sun, which is still around, but which has been damaged by bad ownership. Venetoulos is simply the institute that was set up to own the Baltimore banner. And it's interesting that they spread their wings and acquired Pittsburgh. Now I should say, it wasn't an entirely happy story. They made a lot of cuts at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and the union in Pittsburgh complained that those cuts disproportionately fell on union activists who had been pushing back on the blocks for some time. So even a nonprofit has to be able to find a way to break even. But certainly the rise of nonprofit news is one of the most heartening examples of the way forward for community journalism that we've seen in recent years. And it's something that continues to gain momentum.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about the future of the Toledo Blade and newspapers in general with Dan Kennedy, journalism professor at Northeastern University. So artificial intelligence has emerged as a major tool and a source of worry in many professions, including journalism. And it was a factor in the union contract negotiations for the Toleto News Guild. They rejected a contract in August by a 2 to 1 margin, and in May, journalists at McClatchy's newspaper also withheld their bylines over a dispute over AI content, namely that they were putting reporters' names on some AI-generated articles. So what's your take on the use of artificial intelligence in journalism? Does it have a place? What's the future here?
Kennedy: Well, and by the way, since we're talking about cuts at McClatchy, there have been reports that McClatschy plans to produce AI-generated lifestyle features. So that's certainly something we can all look forward to. AI is a tool, and I use it all the time. You probably use it at all the times. I have found it to be a better than Google search tool in many cases. I sometimes use it to brainstorm interview questions, although I have yet to find that it does a better job than I do. Um, but, um, it, it is, uh, any uses beyond that, I think, are kind of fraught with peril. Once you're starting to use AI to actually write your stories, uh you're losing that human element and the human element is incredibly important to journalism because I, I think that equally important to informing the public is sparking a renewal of civic engagement. And you can't do that if you're just publishing a bunch of robot stories.
Juravich: Let's talk about students for a minute. With fewer traditional newspapers hiring new reporters and all newspapers having a smaller staff all the way around, now AI being put into journalism as well. I mean, what skills are you advising your students to have? What type of jobs are you grooming them for? Like, what are you telling them?
Kennedy: Well, you know, I'm an old guy, so I tend to teach our more traditional courses, but we have younger, smarter colleagues who are teaching them all kinds of skills, including advanced data visualization and the ethical use of AI in producing journalism. You know, I would say that students in journalism programs have always used it as a means to an end. And a lot of cases, those have been jobs in various communications related fields, law school, whatever. But there's always been a hardcore of students who really want to go into journalism. And I find that our students are still finding a way. Some of them are at these smaller startups that we're talking about. Some of are at large legacy news organizations. It's harder than it used to be, but you know, Amy, you know it was always hard. Now it's harder, but the ones who really want to do it seem to find a way.
Juravich: You recently, you wrote a review for a new book. The book's called "Deserted, How the Local News Crisis is Devastating Rural Communities." It's a book written by Nick Matthews. Can you tell me more about this rural piece to the journalism puzzle? Because, I mean, we're talking about Toledo, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, those are big cities. How are people in other areas getting their news?
Kennedy: Well, Nick did a really good job in bringing out that problem. It's a good book. What Ellen Clegg and I found in our research is that even though the rise of startup news organizations has been something that should fill us with some optimism, it's uneven. And the problem is really difficult in urban communities of color and rural communities. And Even in those urban communities of color, they tend to be near large philanthropic foundations that are interested in helping those communities get the news and information that they need. You get out into rural America, and there really isn't much. Nick took a look at three counties in Virginia. One county had no newspaper at all. Another county had a ghost newspaper that was, it had very little local content in it. It's a real problem. Ellen and I wrote about the Storm Lake Times in Iowa in our book, and the co-founders and owners, Art Cullen and his brother, John Cullen, subsist on Social Security. They can't afford to take a salary out of the paper, and this is a rural area. So I think that as we look at philanthropic efforts to try to revive local news, a lot of those efforts have to be concentrated on helping rural America, which has really been left behind in a lot ways.
Juravich: Do you feel that a lot of that news in these areas is being made up on social, not made up, but like they're making up ground for the lack of news on social media? I'm sure some of it on social medias made up. But a lot these rural communities have just a very active like discussion forum, like Facebook situation, where there's like one or two community people who will say, you know, did you hear what happened here? Did you hear, you now, and then there's just like chats. What about that as being a news source?
Kennedy: Well, you know, I think that when a Facebook group for a community is well-run, it can actually be an asset to the civic conversation. We've seen that in many communities, but it's easy for that to descend into toxicity. And the other problem is no one is going out and doing the reporting that's needed. So even the best local Facebook groups tend to consist of a lot of questions. Do you know what's going on with this neighborhood development? Hey, I heard this restaurant shut down. Is the city council really going to raise our taxes? You get more questions than answers. For the answers, you need accountability journalism.
Juravich: Before I let you go, I wanted to just get your take on what's kind of happening nationally right now. We're talking about local journalism today, but we can pivot to what's happening with the White House press corps just for a minute with the Trump administration. President Trump has moved to ban CNN, MS Now, and Politico. The network suspended their pool coverage of Trump kind of like in solidarity. As you watch this all unfold, like what strikes you there just as someone who's studied this and written about this for so long?
Kennedy: Well, you and I have been talking for 20 minutes, so we may have missed something. Yeah, that's true. You know, there was an immediate lawsuit filed, but I mean, the way that Donald Trump and his administration have waged war against the free press has been, has just absolutely unparalleled. I always joke to my students that everything goes back to Richard Nixon. Well, Nixon never would have dared do this in the open. And he would have tried to do it. Surreptitiously. Trump is right in your face about it. And unfortunately, what he succeeded in doing is that, you know, more than half the country continues to trust journalism to bring them the news and information that we need to function in a democracy. But nearly half don't believe that. And he has succeeded in discrediting the very idea of journalism. In the minds of the people who follow him. And even though his approval ratings are sinking to record low numbers right now, I'm afraid that that attitude is gonna remain with us. And so those of us who work in journalism and try to do our best to inform the public about what's actually going on, you know, we may continue to reach more than half the country. But I don't think it's going to be much more than half the country. There's going continue to be this significant minority that just dismisses everything that we report.
Juravich: We've been talking about the future of the Toledo Blade, newspapers, and journalism with Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University. Thanks for your time today, Dan.
Kennedy: Thank you so much, Amy.
Juravich: And coming up, we're gonna talk about what the demise of local newspapers could mean for freedom of the press. That is when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. We're talking this hour about local journalism, about the potential sale or closure of the Toledo Blade, one of Ohio's oldest newspapers, and why the press is considered the fourth estate, how a robust press is vital to a healthy democracy. With us now is an attorney specializing in the First Amendment, Michael Berry. He's a partner in the Philadelphia law firm Ballard Spar. Thank you for joining us this morning, Michael.
Michael Berry: Thank you for having me.
Juravich: I wanted to go way back and have you give us a little primer on why the Founding Fathers thought free press was so important that they put it in the U.S. Constitution. Can you give a short history lesson on why it's in the Constitution?
Berry: Yeah, so I'll give you a very, very quick explanation. Back during colonial times, there was no free speech. There was no Free Press. And it would be considered a crime to criticize the crown, to criticize royalty, and to criticize crown governors here in the colonies. And the colonists didn't take lightly to that, you know, as little kids we learned about the Boston Tea Party and other protests at the time that really kicked off the revolution here in what became the United States. And the founders understood that it was critical for people to be able to govern themselves. They needed access to information, they needed access to each other's opinions, and they needed to protect the ability to criticize the governed.
Juravich: Before we get to local journalism, and we talk about the Toledo Blade for a little bit, I wanted to get your take on what's happening right now with the Trump administration, the Trump Administration barring CNN, MSNOW, and Politico. Can you speak generally about this kind of standoff? I mean, what does something like this mean for the free press being in the Constitution, the fact that the administration banned media from the White House?
Berry: The ban is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. As I said, it is a core to our founding to allow the press to cover and to speak about the government, and in particular the head of the United States government, here the president. And the exclusion of specific media based on what they are reporting and based on views is wholly unconstitutional.
Juravich: So the news organization sued, and there's actually a hearing set for today. So something's happening right now as we speak. But legally, does the Trump administration have a case on their hands? Do they have any right to ban a media outlet?
Berry: No, not not in this situation. As soon as the government here, the president opens up the White House and the press briefing room to reporters, they can't then exclude people based on the viewpoints that they've expressed or the things that they're reporting. And that's exactly what has happened here. And there's case law coming from this particular court that says that that's a violation of the First Amendment.
Juravich: So other presidents have had issues with the press, tried to silence them, shut down investigations, just maybe they went about it in a different way. Our previous guest said that Nixon would do it kind of like behind the scenes instead of in front of the scenes. So is this just more of the same? Is this something different? Is what's happening today at the White House, is it deeper, is it different?
Berry: Sure, administrations always have tension with the press. I mean, there's the push and pull of the government versus journalists, and that goes back to the founding era. This is fundamentally different because the government is taking affirmative action to bar journalists that it does not like what they are saying, what they're reporting, and that is unlike anything that has happened in the past.
Juravich: Now, the Trump administration is probably going to argue today that it's national security. And it's also that they've said something like it's a privilege to have access, not a right. So if he cites national security, is that something the court could say, OK?
Berry: I'd have to see the specifics of what they cite, but throwing around headlines and invoking national security isn't provide some sort of shield that allows the government to simply bulldoze through the First Amendment. And nothing I've seen to date would legitimize that. And certainly nothing that happens in the press briefing room exposes a threat to the national security. I don't believe that's what the White House has actually even tried to hard do.
Juravich: Okay. And what about the idea of saying that it's a privilege, not a right, that it is a right in the Constitution? Is that that's what you're saying?
Berry: Right. The press people have a right to speak. And once the president opens up the White House briefing room to reporters, they create sort of an illegal jargon, what's called a public forum. And once you've created that, you can'exclude people based on their viewpoints and based on what they're expressing. And that's what's happened here. You can contrast this situation with a situation that actually happened in Ohio a little over 20 years ago involving a of Youngstown, where the mayor refused to answer questions by a certain newspaper. And instructed city employees not to answer questions from the newspaper. And the court said, well, you don't, the press doesn't have a right to have answers to its questions. Anybody can ask questions. You don't necessarily have a way to get an answer. But that's fundamentally different than what's happening here. The president doesn't answer questions that are being shouted out by any particular media outlets, reporters. But once he's opened up a space and invited reporters in, he can't exclude them based on their views. Mm-hmm.
Juravich: You often talk about the greatest threats to press freedom and how those threats are coming from the top and from the bottom. So can you explain what you mean by that? What do you mean from the topic and from bottom?
Berry: The First Amendment is critical, as I say, to the way that our country operates. You have to be able to express your views. And I think that the two greatest threats facing our country today in the First Amendment context are, like you say, the threats from the top. So our leaders of the country, the leaders of our states, the leaders in business. Threatening the press, suing the press taking actions to criticize the press at every moment, using the courts as a weapon to try and suppress critical speech, to try and suppress, critical reporting is deeply dangerous because it sets a tone in the country that undermines the actual. Accurate information that's being reported that suppresses people from attempting to criticize the governors, the exact kinds of things that the founding fathers were concerned about. And you couple that at the same time with, I don't mean to sound like an old guy, but with the younger generation not understanding what free speech means. And that sometimes free speech can be hurtful, it can be hateful, it can very difficult. And talk to people who are in high schools who are in colleges, who are young professionals, and they believe that hate speech needs to be banned or perhaps punished by the government. And that too is just as dangerous. You know, obviously those things are not good and we should, you know, be respectful. We should combat hate in all of its elements. But we shouldn't have the government be the arbiter of who is right and who is wrong, what is accurate information or not. And those two pressures together really threaten our fundamental First Amendment freedoms and ultimately threaten our ability to govern ourselves.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about the future of newspapers and press freedom with Philadelphia-based First Amendment attorney Michael Barry. This, what you were just talking about kind of reminds me of attack ads. I was talking, I did a show earlier this week and we talked about it, we've talked about a couple of times on the show where courts have ruled in Ohio that like in a political attack ad, like you can lie, right? But, because, and that, but. So the lie can be, the ad can be a lie, but the First Amendment protects that as free speech. Yeah.
Berry: Well, there are limits. You can't just outright lie about somebody and know it like in the political context and have it be a knowing lie. But the law that protects the ability to have those kind of rough and tumble ads, you know, like for people to throw mud on each other is the thing that makes our democracy function. The right for people to get out there and have, you know these, you know bare knuckle brawls in the politics context. Allows people to make decisions to see you know what candidates actually believe and who you want standing up for you and standing in the well of the legislature and casting a vote on your behalf and that's again what the founding fathers understood and that is what we need to protect.
Juravich: You've also seen a big increase in defamation cases though. So tell us, I guess, first what a defamation case is and then why are we seeing an increase in them?
Berry: Well, a defamation case is kind of what you just said, if somebody believes that another person has told a lie about them that harms their reputation in some way that really fractures their standing in the community, then they can sue for what's called defamation. And we have seen a huge rise in these kinds of cases over the past 10 years. And I think there's a few things that are driving it. The first is the phenomenon that I talked about earlier, where leaders. Uh you know in the government leaders in the business space are increasingly filing lawsuits for defamation. I think other people see that and and you know believe that they they should follow that kind of behavior. The second is the kind of crassness that we see in social media. There's you know people rather than trying to engage in actual civil discourse you know or you know threatening each other on social media and a lot of those things spill out into uh into lawsuits rather than being resolved, you know, through just Good discussion on being a good neighbor.
Juravich: We talked earlier in the show about the possible sale or maybe the closure of the Toledo Blade. And earlier this year, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a sister paper, was sold to a nonprofit journalism group. Lucas County Commissioner Anita Lopez was asked about the Blade announcement of its possible closure. And she said, independent journalism is the hallmark of democracy. So we hope that they are able to sell and again, continue this great journalism in our country. Can you comment on that through line of journalism being a hallmark of democracy.
Berry: Again, this is why the founding fathers put a free press into the constitution. In order for people to govern themselves, they have to have information about what the government is up to. They have to information about what is going on in their community. They have understand what the issues are. And for that to happen, it is critical that there be strong and independent journalism in communities everywhere. And the economics of the media right now complicated. It's a very difficult time for media businesses. And it's unfortunate what's happening in Toledo. At the same time, there are bright spots around the country where nonprofits are stepping in to fill the void. Here in Pennsylvania. Spotlight PA has done tremendous work in covering not only Harrisburg, but areas around the state and what's going on. We're seeing similar phenomenons in Mississippi with Mississippi Today, in Montana with the Montana Free Press. And so as an industry, journalism is working to figure out these economics and the non-profits have really kept in in a tremendous way in a lot of places.
Juravich: We're running out of time, but I want to ask you about AI. With the advent of artificial intelligence, with it being used as de facto journalists and writing stories, are there gonna be press protections, First Amendment protections, if an AI chat bot wrote a story?
Berry: That's a great question, and something that the courts will have to be figuring out. I mean, journalists are using it more and more as a tool. And the question of whether AI has First Amendment rights is something that's being debated quite a bit in the Academy among professors and scholars. And we're starting to see the first cases start to play out. But I can't even begin to try and answer that.
Juravich: Are you smiling and chuckling because it makes you uncomfortable to thought of having to represent an AI chatbot or something like that?
Berry: No, right? No, I'm chugging because it raises really serious complicated questions. Right? I think the human to begin to code the AI and that kind of coding is protected by the First Amendment. But once you have that coding replicating itself and going on and using sort of a genetic AI, it becomes a much more complicated question. Again, it's well beyond what I could possibly try and dissect in a short...
Juravich: Yeah. Okay. Well, in the last minute we have left, you're an attorney who represents journalists in newspapers. I mean, are you concerned about the dwindling state of newspapers? You mentioned, you know, Spotlight PA, a few places that are doing a good job. But overall, what worries you?
Berry: Uh, yes, I mean, I am worried about the decline in the number of newspapers, the number journalists out there. The numbers just in the course of my 20 plus year career, it's staggering to see the loss of the numbers of reporters out there, the number institutions that are covering what's going on around us. And it is deeply concerning. People need to step up and make contributions to nonprofits that support journalism. They need to subscribe to their local paper. They need to make sure that, you know, they're... You know, radio and television outlets are supported financially. We all benefit from these things and we all have to be willing to throw in our money to help support the cause. I mean, it is critical for us to survive as a country.
Juravich: We have been talking about the future of newspapers and press freedom with Philadelphia based First Amendment attorney Michael Barry. Thank you so much for your time today Michael.
Berry: Thank you for having me on, Amy.
Juravich: This has been All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. Thanks for joining us.