Kentucky Media Legal Network
in partnership with Press Forward Blue Grass
Reducing Legal Fear. Strengthening Kentucky Journalism.
Across Kentucky, particularly in rural and under-resourced communities, local newsrooms operate with shrinking budgets and limited access to legal counsel. Even responsible, evidence-based reporting can trigger legal threats that small news organizations are ill-equipped to absorb.
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The result is not always litigation.
More often, it is silence.
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Stories are softened. Investigative angles are delayed. Public-interest reporting is abandoned before publication. Legal uncertainty becomes a quiet but powerful force shaping what communities do, and do not, know.
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The Kentucky Media Legal Network is here for you to reduce that chilling effect.
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Attorney Frank K. Newman, leads this initiative developed by Press Forward Blue Grass providing limited, pro bono pre-publication recommendations and guidance to established Kentucky newsrooms and growing newsgathering multimedia organizations. Frank brings a rare and uniquely qualified perspective to this work.
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Before becoming an attorney, he served for a decade as a newspaper reporter, editor and photojournalist, earning multiple Kentucky Press Association awards and leading a community newspaper to First Place in General Excellence and often placing in other award categories. He understands newsroom decision-making not as theory, but as lived experience.
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Since 2011, Frank has practiced law in Kentucky and, for the past decade, has served as President & CEO of a more than 70-year-old Kentucky law firm. His legal career has focused on advising individuals, multimedia developers, companies, and organizations on public accountability, confidentiality, records requests, legal risk management, copyright, and emerging media issues.
Frank regularly works with writers and journalists, translating complex legal concepts into practical newsroom and newsgathering guidance grounded in both First Amendment principles and real-world editorial realities.
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Equally important, we’ve developed relationships with other attorneys and law firms across Kentucky who share a commitment to democracy, the Fourth Estate, and protecting First Amendment rights.
When matters escalate beyond advisory guidance and recommendations, trusted referral options ensure that newsrooms and newsgathering organizations can access experienced media defense counsel.
SOUTHEAST KENTUCKY
108 Knox Street
Barbourville, KY 40906
CENTRAL KENTUCKY
200 East Main Street
Suite 209
Richmond, KY 40475
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