Great news. Last night, thanks to the rapid response of Free Press activists, Arizona State University lifted its blocking of student access to Change.org.

We hope ASU understands that it must put the free speech rights of its students first. Free Press has asked the university to scrutinize its Internet use policies to be sure they don’t compromise these online freedoms. 

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After arresting more than 20 journalists in New York City, and threatening press in various other ways, the New York City Police Department has admitted that it has reprimanded only two of its officers for their actions.

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UPDATE: Today marks the beginning of a local media monopoly in Tucson, Ariz. Exploiting loopholes in the Federal Communications Commission’s ownership rules, Raycom Media has taken control of three local stations: KMSB, KOLD and KTTU. The stations are now co-branded as “Tucson News Now” and they operate out of the same studio (about 40 employees lighter than before).

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Last November Free Press released On the Chopping Block: State Budget Battles and the Future of Public Media, an inventory of dramatic state-level funding cuts to public broadcasting. Our report, co-authored by Josh Stearns and Mike Soha, documents how state support for public broadcasting has plunged since the economy took a nosedive in 2008. What’s more, the report notes that politics — not financial considerations — have driven much of this budget cutting.

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Remember Carrier IQ, the company that makes the secret spying software that’s installed on more than 140 million phones? You know, the software that can record our most sensitive personal data?

Cellphone companies including AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile use Carrier IQ to track what smartphone users are doing on their phones, but it’s unclear what data is being tracked and what is being done with that information. While both these companies and Carrier IQ claim they want our most sensitive information only to diagnose hardware and software problems, the public — and some members of Congress — still have questions about what, exactly, this powerful software can do.

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The city’s MillionTrees program fights asthma and global warming. But tightening maintenance budgets, increasingly severe weather and decades-old planting decisions complicate trees’ contribution.

The proliferation of falafel carts and other sidewalk food stands in Bay Ridge might make for tasty lunch options. But people who own brick-and-mortar restaurants say the mobile eateries represent unfair competition.

While most of the attention surrounding journalist arrests at Occupy protests has focused on New York City, where more than 20 journalists have been detained, it looks like Oakland will be giving the Big Apple a run for its money. On Jan. 28, Oakland police detained six journalists during mass arrests of Occupy protesters. This comes just weeks after Oakland police apprehended another journalist who, in a video of the arrest, appeared to be obeying orders to disperse.

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The proliferation of falafel carts and other sidewalk food stands in Bay Ridge might make for tasty lunch options. But people who own brick-and-mortar restaurants say the mobile eateries represent unfair competition.

The proliferation of falafel carts and other sidewalk food stands in Bay Ridge might make for tasty lunch options. But people who own brick-and-mortar restaurants say the mobile eateries represent unfair competition.

A new report paints the most detailed statistical picture ever of Brooklyn and its 18 community districts, and suggests residents today are less poor, better educated, paying more for housing and more likely to ride mass transit than in 2000.

This week Reporters Without Borders released its 2011–2012 Press Freedom Index, and much of the attention has focused on the fact that the United States dropped 27 places to 47th in the world, thanks in large part to the journalist arrests at Occupy Wall Street events. For a nation that has built its model of governance on freedom of the press, that ranking should be a wake-up call, and should spark a national debate about how we are going to defend the First Amendment in the digital age.

On its own, the study from Reporters Without Borders is a powerful snapshot of press freedom around the world. However, it’s worth cross-referencing the report’s findings with a few other data points to better understand how the United States stacks up, and why this ranking is so important. When the lists below are viewed side by side, it becomes clear that press freedom correlates directly with other measures of democratic health.

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A new report paints the most detailed statistical picture ever of Brooklyn and its 18 community districts, and suggests residents today are less poor, better educated, paying more for housing and more likely to ride mass transit than in 2000.

In last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama called for a “renewal of American values.” However, over the course of his wide-ranging speech, he made no mention of one core value: the fundamental role of the free press in America.

This absence was highlighted this morning when Reporters Without Borders released its 2011–2012 global Press Freedom Index. After months of journalist arrests and press suppression at Occupy Wall Street-inspired protests, the United States has plummeted in the rankings.

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People inside the D.C. bubble often tell stories about lavish fundraisers and the use of campaign cash to shore up votes in Congress. Conspiracy theories about who uses their PAC money, or direct contributions, to bend the ear of powerful committee chairmen and party leaders circulate throughout the capital faster than the Metro.

Still, the stories are usually hard to substantiate, and publicly members of Congress and their staffs are quick to deny that money has any influence at all. Rarely is the systemic corporate capture of Washington, D.C., on display in such a transparent and ugly way as it was last week.

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In the media reform world, we often say we’re fighting for “better” media. Of course, “better” is the sort of word that begs comparison: better than what? If we’re to demand more of our local broadcasters, we need to know what’s wrong with the status quo.

Broadcasters use the public airwaves free of charge, and in return are supposed to provide programming that fulfills the news and information needs of communities. The Federal Communications Commission requires broadcasters to keep public files detailing exactly how they serve local needs. But these records are generally kept in file cabinets at local TV stations and are not easily accessible. So the pressure is on for broadcasters to put these files online in a publicly searchable database.

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Under the leadership of our friends at New Mexico’s Media Literacy Project, ninth graders Jack Folkner, Martin Jencka and Jay Jewell-Roth created a video about the recently shelved Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

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The end of the Advantage subsidy program leaves advocates battling to salvage a policy they criticized, the city bracing for more demand for scarce shelter beds and low-income families wondering what comes next.

Some have criticized the words that teens use to discuss sex in a new series of public service announcements. This author argues the only way to reach at-risk youth is to speak their language.

Some have criticized the words that teens use to discuss sex in a new series of public service announcements. This author argues the only way to reach at-risk youth is to speak their language.