New $60 million project to fight for 1st Amendment

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Columbia University on Tuesday announced the launch of a $60 million project, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which would use litigation as well as research and education to fight for freedom of expression in an ever-evolving digital era.

The focus would be on how freedom of expression is defined in a digital age filled with advances in technology that judges who decided cases decades ago couldn't have seen coming, said Eric Newton, a consultant who was formerly a longtime journalism program leader at Knight and worked on the institute project.

"A citizen who can carry a cellphone, which is a printing press and a broadcast studio, in his or her pocket has legal standing that courts have yet to sort out," he said, pointing out that whether that citizen has journalist protections currently varies from state to state.