I'm Isabella Royo, intern at Lawfare, with an episode from the Lawfare Archive for December 28, 2025.

On October 22nd, assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Sean Parnell,

announced the arrival of 60 journalists who had helped constitute a new Pentagon Press Corps.

The new Press Corps lacks major media outlets such as the New York Times and National Public

Radio, and includes right-wing outlets such as the Gateway Pundit and One American News,

as Laura Lumer, Mike Lindell,

and former representative, Matt Gates.

For today's archive, I chose an episode from March 6th, 2012, in which Matt Gluck spoke

with Larissa Lidsky and Christina Ceningasor about how executive branch constraints, the erosion

of certain post-Watergate reforms, the decline of local news and other factors have placed the press at a First Amendment disadvantage that limits journalists' capacity to extract information and to check executive power, as well as how that disadvantage could be corrected. I'm Matt Gluck, Research Fellow at Lawfare, and this is the Lawfare podcast, March 6th, 2024.

Executive branch constraints and the posture of the media have shifted in significant ways over the past two decades.

Larissa Lidski and Christina Konigasor, law professors at the University of Florida and the University of California, San Francisco, respectively,

argue in a forthcoming Law Review article that these changes, including the erosion of certain

post-Watergate reforms and the decline of local news, have created a First Amendment

disequilibrium. They contend that the twin assumptions of the press's power to extract

information and check government authority on the one hand, and the limitations on executive branch power on the other that undergird First Amendment jurisprudence no longer hold, leaving the press at a significant First Amendment disadvantage.

We discussed the current state of First Amendment jurisprudence, the ways in which the press used to be stronger,

executive branch power on the federal and state levels, how the authors think our current

First Amendment architecture should change, and more. It's the Lawfare podcast, March 6th,

Lidski and Koenegasor, on First Amendment disequilibrium.

Larissa, could you please describe your argument in your forthcoming law review article on First Amendment disequilibrium?

The basic argument is that the U.S. Supreme Court, in its key First Amendment decisions, defining the protection of press freedom assumed

...