Watchdog.org Podcast

By Ben Yount and Mark Lisheron | Watchdog Radio Say it Loud, Say it Proud is Watchdog Radio’s weekly look at free speech and First Amendment issues — examining rights among the most important to our society, but also rights most frequently under attack. In this week’s episode, host Ben Yount sits down with Mark Lisheron, a senior editor for Watchdog.org to chat about the First Amendment protections for journalists. Can local governments (or any government, for that matter) decide who counts as a journalist? In Illinois, one town is trying to do that. After a local radio host tracked down a city official and knocked on his front door to get some answers about the city budget, the town slapped him with a restraining order for stalking. Yes, really. The city's official position is that the radio host was "pretending to be a real journalist." Yount explains the situation in Bloomington, Illinois, and Lisheron discusses the constitutional problems with letting a government decide who i