Free press lecture comes to GC&SU
Dr. Dennis Reeves Cooper, editor in chief of Key West The Newspaper (KWTN), will examine the balance between the First Amendment and censorship in a program March 25 at Georgia College & State University.
Cooper will be speaking in the Arts & Sciences Auditorium Thursday, March 25, at 7 p.m. A reception will follow after the speech and admission is free and open to the public.
After a 30-year career in public relations and marketing communications in both a corporate world and as an independent consultant, Dr. Cooper founded the investigative/political weekly, KWTN, in 1994.
Cooper’s speech will discuss his experiences with the editorial process and his ongoing legal battles with the violation of his first amendment rights. In the summer of 2001, Cooper uncovered and reported that a Key West police officer had lied in court and that Internal Affairs had covered it up. When the Police Chief Buz Dillon refused to investigate, Cooper asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to get involved. When the FDLE ordered Dillon to investigate, Cooper reported it and Dillon had him arrested for it. He was charged with violating a state law that made it illegal for a “complaint” in an investigation to go public with information about that investigation. However, in swearing out his arrest warrant, Dillon had apparently relied on a gag law that had been declared unconstitutional by a federal judge a decade earlier.
Cooper received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Georgia in 1963 and a Doctorate in Mass Communications from the University of Tennessee in 1987.
The Mass Communication Program’s Public Relations and Administration class and the American Democracy Project are the sponsors of Cooper’s visit to GC&SU. If you have any questions, please call 445-7393.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Mar 19 2004. Filed under News.
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