Legislative Briefing

Fallen Journalists Memorial

Updated March 9, 2020 Background:

Violence against journalists alarmed our industry on June 28, 2018, when a gunman entered the Capital- Gazette in Annapolis, MD, and shot dead four veteran journalists and a sales associate. It was the most deadly and notorious assault on an American journalist on US soil since the on-air shooting of a Roanoke, VA, TV broadcaster in 2015. Journalists at risk abroad as they cover armed conflict have been a part of America’s story for centuries. But threats to journalists are regrettably common in large media markets and even America’s hometowns. With the domestic risk suddenly brought home by the Annapolis shootings, the call to memorialize the sacrifices of those who gave their lives to inform readers and viewers has grown.

Prominent journalists ranging World War II’s to Michael Kelly of and of the Wall Street Journal are known to historians, but the hundred or more Civil War correspondents and photographers who lost their lives are memorialized only in a monument in remote regions of the Catoctin Mountains. And an interactive exhibit of journalist fatalities that was part of the was taken down when that museum closed in January 2020. No national memorial recognizes all of these sacrifices given in the name of the First Amendment and the need for an informed public.

In June 2019, the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation announced it would begin working with Congress and the National Park Service to identify a location for a privately-funded memorial. The Foundation is led by former Rep. David Dreier, Chairman of Tribune Publishing. Initial funding for the Foundation was provided by contributions from the Annenberg Foundation and the Michael and Jacky Ferro Foundation.

The editor of the Capital Gazette said to Congress recently: “Journalism is vital to the success of our democracy. I know it at the local level, some of you know it at the national level, and I think a memorial like this is a just and fitting way to recognize that importance to our nation.” Supporters of the memorial have testified that the best way to teach the next generation of the importance of journalists is to have a commemorative work that they can visit when they come to Washington.

The Foundation intends to finance the siting, building and management of the Memorial. But it requires the consent of Congress to put the Memorial on federal grounds. National Newspaper Association endorses the legislation to establish the memorial and urges Members of Congress to quickly vote their approval.

Legislative Action:

On June 25, 2019, Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rob Portman (R-OH) and Representatives Grace Napolitano (D-CA) and Tom Cole (R-OK) introduced legislation in Congress to honor fallen journalists by authorizing the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation (FJM Foundation) to establish a commemorative work on federally owned and administered land in the District of Columbia. The bills are HR 3465 and S 1969.

The legislation awaits action on the House floor. In the Senate, it is pending before the Subcommittee on National Parks, chaired by Sen. Steve Daines, R-MT. Sen. Angus King, I-ME, is the ranking member.