I’m Darren Samuelsohn and this is The love, journalism Show. First time visiting? Please sign up for my love letter from the beat.
Today is the 118th birthday of the oldest journalism school in the world — Mizzou's, September 14, 1908. So there was only one person to call: Sandy Davidson, my law professor from the School of Journalism, and for three decades the attorney for the Columbia Missourian.
Sandy Davidson taught me the Missouri Method’s core premise: students learn journalism by doing it, not by reading about it. That hasn’t changed since 1908 — except for everything around it.
She was blunt about the moment we’re in: “The First Amendment is taking a battery right now.”
We got into what’s actually protecting journalists today, and the honest answer might be: not much. Reporters subpoenaed within 48 hours of a leak. DOJ skipping its own guidelines. Forty states have shield laws — Missouri isn’t one of them.
Then there’s the harder question underneath all of it: who even counts as a journalist anymore?
The Supreme Court punted on defining it back in 1972. Sandy calls what’s happened since “asymmetrical journalism” — the same shift that let cheap drones take on billion-dollar armies has let anyone with a laptop take on billion-dollar newsrooms. Wimbledon just barred influencers after chaos at the US Open. Her take: institutions can set standards, but nobody’s found a principle that actually holds up — everyone’s just making the rules up as they go, tennis courts and political conventions alike.
We talked about the New York Times’ first defamation loss in fifty years — a single anonymous source, $9.25 million — and what that should teach student reporters about single-source stories. We talked about local news deserts, and what actually disappears when nobody’s covering the city council meeting anymore. And she answered a question from one of my fellow Mizzou classmates now teaching high school journalism in South Florida — a nice full-circle moment from our pen and paper note-taking days in Gannett Hall.
Sandy and I have stayed close through the years. She’s been a teacher and adviser long after my graduation. Recently, I shared the work I’ve been doing via love, journalism. “For me, it’s love truth. Is the love of truth slipping?” she replied, setting the stage well for this episode.
