One year after the unprecedented police raid of the Marion County Record newsroom in Kansas, research co-led by Steve Wolgast, a professor of the practice of journalism at the University of Kansas, shows that journalists need better training on state and federal press protections.
"There are protections in the United States that go beyond just reciting the First Amendment that are supposed to keep this sort of thing from happening," Wolgast told KCUR's Up To Date.
As part of the study, Dr. Deborah Dwyer, an independent research consultant, interviewed 19 newsroom employees.
"We definitely uncovered that there is more legal training that needs to be given to journalists," Dwyer said. "But also they're not the only ones who need that knowledge of the legal protections."
Dwyer recommends that public officials and law enforcement should also receive training on freedom of the press protections.
"Because had anyone stopped to think about what they were doing [in Marion County], it would have been easy to understand — you would have hoped that the magistrate judge would have understood, that this is illegal in its face," Dwyer said.
- Steve Wolgast, professor of the practice of journalism, University of Kansas
- Dr. Deborah Dwyer, independent research consultant
