Jonathan Peters elected president of Georgia First Amendment Foundation
Jonathan Peters elected president of Georgia First Amendment Foundation
Jonathan Peters, the head of the Department of Journalism, has been elected president of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, or GFAF, for 2024.
“Free expression and information access are at the heart of American democratic life, which demands that citizens be informed to participate meaningfully in public affairs,” Peters wrote in a letter to the GFAF membership. He added in an interview: “I’m excited and honored to serve the Foundation because of its commitment to public service and its critical statewide mission.”
GFAF is a nonprofit and nonpartisan membership organization that works across Georgia to protect and advance free expression, information access, open records/meetings, and the rights of peaceable protestors. The Foundation advocates in the legislature, in the courts, and in county and city agencies—and it produces educational resources to explain the law.
Peters has served on GFAF’s board of directors since 2019 and previously held the positions of vice president, treasurer, and secretary.
At UGA, he teaches and researches media law—in Grady College and the School of Law—and his research has appeared in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, the Harvard Law and Policy Review, and the Federal Communications Law Journal, among others. He has also written about legal issues for a variety of news organizations, including Vanity Fair, Esquire, The Atlantic, and NBC News.
Peters is a volunteer First Amendment lawyer for the Student Press Law Center and the ACLU, and he is currently serving a four-year term as a member of the Panel of Experts on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association within the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.
Peters is a frequent commentator on media law issues for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR. He has testified in litigation as an expert witness and has conducted legal seminars for many news outlets, such as the radio program “This American Life” and the podcast “Serial.” In 2020, Peters consulted with the Uzbekistan government as part of a United Nations Development Programme initiative to strengthen public access to the country’s judiciary.
Peters has a B.S. in journalism from Ohio University, a J.D. from Ohio State University, and a Ph.D. in journalism from the University of Missouri.
Author: Sarah Freeman, freemans@uga.edu