{"id":31544,"date":"2023-05-02T21:55:18","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T21:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/u-s-to-help-journalists\/"},"modified":"2023-05-02T21:59:54","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T21:59:54","slug":"u-s-to-help-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/u-s-to-help-journalists\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. to help journalists globally defend against legal threats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) &#8211;     The United States on Tuesday launched a program to defend journalists around the world from legal threats aimed at silencing critical voices, a growing tactic that top U.S. aid official Samantha Power described as &#8220;lawfare.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced the Reporters Shield program at an event to mark World Press Freedom Day at the United Nations. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Many independent outlets can&#8217;t afford to be sued, so they are driven out of business or they try to self censor to avoid attracting the interest of those who might target them,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Corrupt leaders know all this, which is why they&#8217;re using lawfare more and more.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>USAID said it plans to work with Congress to provide up to $9 million for the Reporters Shield program that will be jointly managed by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To withstand lawfare journalists and media outlets need robust protection, they need training in how to avoid lawsuits altogether, they need resources to hire lawyers and cover legal fees,&#8221; Power said.<\/p>\n<p>USAID said Reporters Shield will be a membership program and organizations will pay an annual fee based on factors like the outlet&#8217;s location and how many stories they produce a year.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by David Gregorio)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/u-s-to-help-journalists\/the-u-s-africa-leaders-summit-2022-is-held-in-washington\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportTopNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410VF-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410VF-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) &#8211; The United States on Tuesday launched a program to defend journalists around the world from legal threats aimed at silencing critical voices, a growing tactic that top U.S. aid official Samantha Power described as &#8220;lawfare.&#8221; Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced the Reporters Shield program at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":31545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1221],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-31544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-top-news","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportTopNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410VF-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31546,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31544\/revisions\/31546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}