"The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which staged a fake news conference, was among the winners' Tuesday of the 2008 Jefferson Muzzle Awards, given by a free-speech group for egregious First Amendment violations.FEMA made the list, compiled by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, for staging the news conference during the California wildfires. Agency employees posed as journalists and asked officials soft questions while real reporters got little notice of the news conference and were barred from asking questions because the conference call was 'listen only.'Center director Bob O'Neil said the bogus event was an example of fake speech substituting for free speech.'We haven't (previously) had anything that fell into the falsification or disinformation category; this is a first," O'Neil said in a telephone interview.
The police department in Scranton, Pa., was cited for filing criminal charges against Dawn Herb, who screamed a string of profanities when a toilet in her home overflowed. Herb's neighbor, an off-duty officer, told her to tone it down. After she continued, she was charged with disorderly conduct. A judge acquitted Herb in December, saying that though her comments might be considered vulgar, she had the First Amendment right to express herself.
The Federal Communications Commission got a Lifetime Muzzle for having four citations and for being in the running nearly each year of the awards' 17-year history. The commission has been nominated mostly over how it has defined broadcast indecency following situations that included U2 frontman Bono's use of the "F-word" at a 2003 awards show and Janet Jackson's Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" in 2004. . . . FEMA Among 'Winners' of Muzzle Awards By ZINIE CHEN SAMPSON
Thanks to Dr. Steve.
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