Name: Max Taetle

Social Justice Group: 2018-2019, Freedom of the Press

Date of Fieldwork: December 22, 2019

Name of Organization: ACLU

Person (people) with whom I met and their job titles: Chris Ott Lawyer

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did:

We had an interview with Chris Ott who works for the ACLU. Chris Ott along with the ACLU help journalists all around the world, with their right to freedom of the press. We spoke to Chris about current and pass cases with the ACLU, including a controversial case where the ACLU defended a Nazi march through Skokie.

What I learned:

We learned about Chris’ perspective and how he believes that the Nazi case in 1977 and other cases where the person being defended may be morally wrong, but they must be defended to protect free speech laws. More on our topic we talked about how the future of journalism could be a dark road. We talked about our current president and we talked about Marie Colvin.

What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:

I think the main idea about what Chris was saying is that these journalists need to be protected to protect our rights. In the past the present and almost definitely the future journalists and people trying to say something will be prosecuted and will face problems for doing these things, but as people we have to do something.