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Whistleblowing and The Limits of American Secrecy

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The United States has a longer tradition of protecting whistleblowers than most Americans realize. As legal scholar Ruth Ann Strickland notes in the First Amendment Encyclopedia , roughly forty federal laws have been passed to shield employees who expose government and corporate wrongdoing, a legislative history that stretches back to the Revolutionary War itself. Yet despite this deep institutional commitment, the government has repeatedly prosecuted the very people these laws were meant to protect, turning a wartime espionage statute into one of the most powerful tools for silencing dissent in American history. The Continental Congress In 1778, the Continental Congress passed what scholars consider the world's first whistleblower protection law, after naval officers Samuel Shaw and Richard Marven exposed their commanding officer, Commodore Esek Hopkins, for torturing British prisoners of war. Congress not only vindicated the officers but also paid for their legal fees. The princi...
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Review: Five Star Final (1931)

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Mervyn LeRoy's Five Star Final (1931) is not just an old Hollywood movie; it is a direct conversation about the ethical failures that have plagued journalism since the rise of the penny press. The film follows a tabloid newspaper that digs up a decades-old murder case involving a woman who has long since rebuilt her life, purely to boost circulation. The consequences are devastating. For anyone in journalism, the film works almost like a textbook on what happens when a newsroom abandons its responsibility to the public. The most central ethical problem in the film is the complete lack of regard for the people being covered. The editors and reporters at the Gazette never stop to ask whether publishing the story is the right thing to do, they only ask whether it will sell papers. This is the defining sin of yellow journalism, and the film portrays it without any sympathy. The subject of their coverage, Nancy Voorhees, is not a public figure. She poses no threat to the public interest...
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The Boston News-Letter: America's First Successful Newspaper

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The first issue of the Boston News-Letter , published April 24, 1704, prominently displaying 'Published by Authority' at the masthead. On April 24, 1704, Boston postmaster John Campbell launched a modest single-sheet newspaper that would survive for 72 years and establish the foundation for American journalism. The Boston News-Letter wasn't flashy, independent, or particularly controversial, but it was something more important: it was sustainable. A Postmaster's Safe Bet The Boston News-Letter's modest format: a single sheet measuring 8 by 12 inches, printed on both sides. According to journalist, Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831), Campbell had been writing handwritten newsletters to colonial governors since 1700, but printing them required a different approach. Every issue prominently displayed "Published by Authority," modeled on London's official Gazette . The royal governor pre-approved each issue; this wasn't independent journalism by any means, but...
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Me in 500 Words

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When I was a kid, my parents would tell me that the reason they named me "Jon Crawford Lloyd Griffin" was because it would make great name for a senator. It always made me excited because it made me feel like I was destined for greatness. However, being five years old, the only senators I knew of were the Ottawa Senators (the NHL team). As I grew up, the dream of playing in the NHL began to seem less and less realistic, but a new passion began to blossom.  My sisters and I at my high school graduation. I was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina along with an older and younger sister. We grew up in the suburbs of North Raleigh, spending majority of our time outside playing with our neighbors. It was a special neighborhood (Stonemoor) filled with young families and kids the same ages as us; to this day, my family's closest friends are the ones we met in Stonemoor. Us boys spent hundreds, maybe thousands of hours playing outside, specifically street hockey.  It's a...
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