The Citizen Media Law Project (CMLP) is jointly affiliated with Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, a research center founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development, and the Center for Citizen Media, an initiative to enhance and expand grassroots media.
Our Mission
The mission of the CMLP is to provide education, legal training, and resources for individuals and organizations involved in citizen media. We also provide research and advocacy on free speech, newsgathering, intellectual property, and other legal issues related to online speech.
We seek to build a community of lawyers, academics, journalists, and others who are interested in facilitating citizen participation in online media and in protecting the legal rights of those engaged in speech on the Internet.
Our Partners
One of the greatest strengths of the CMLP is our affiliation with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Center for Citizen Media. We are also grateful for the generous financial support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Berkman Center for Internet & Society: The Berkman Center is a research program founded in 1996 to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. It represents a network of Harvard and other faculty, students, fellows, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and virtual architects working to identify and engage with the challenges and opportunities of cyberspace. The Center investigates the real and possible boundaries in cyberspace between open and closed systems of speech, of commerce, of governance, and of education, and the relationship of law to each. It does this through active rather than passive research, believing that the best way to understand cyberspace is to actually build out into it.
The Berkman Center has been at the forefront of efforts to study, understand, and facilitate blogging and citizen journalism, including, among other initiatives: hosting the 2005 Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility conference, which brought together a group of 50 journalists, bloggers, news executives, media scholars, and librarians to study the emerging media environment on the Internet; spearheading Global Voices Online, a major compendium project that seeks to amplify, curate, and aggregate the global blog conversation, focusing on countries and communities outside the U.S. and Western Europe; and making the protection of online speech against lawsuits and legal threats an important priority of its Clinical Program in Cyberlaw. The Center uniquely integrates academic, legal, community, and industry expertise to yield innovative explorations of and solutions to cutting-edge issues like the legal challenges facing citizen journalists.
Center for Citizen Media:
Co-sponsored by the Berkman Center and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, Dan Gillmor launched the
Center for Citizen Media in 2005. The mission of the Center for Citizen
Media is to enhance and expand the emerging field of citizen media,
with a focus on quality journalism. During its first year, the Center
has held a one-day conference at Harvard; created a well-read website
that extensively analyzes and documents community oriented journalism;
worked on educational modules; assisted in the creation of
Placeblogger, a site showcasing hyperlocal media; and much more.
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation: The Knight Foundation promotes journalism excellence worldwide and invests in the vitality of the U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Since 1950 the foundation has granted more than $300 million to advance journalism quality and freedom of expression. Knight Foundation supports ideas and projects that create transformational change.
Volunteer, Intern, and Employment Opportunities
The CMLP is always interested in help from individuals with a legal or
journalism background. We offer paid and unpaid internships, as well as
volunteer opportunities. Lawyers, journalists, and law students of all
levels are especially encouraged to apply.
Applicants should have a demonstrated interest in and enthusiasm
for journalism, citizen media or technology-related legal issues, along
with excellent research and writing skills and the initiative and
energy to see projects to completion in a fast-moving environment.
For more information on how you can get involved, please go here: How to support the CMLP.
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