Search Results - Scher, Jacob

Jacob Scher (journalist)

Jacob Scher (May 25, 1908 – September 27, 1961) was an American journalist, lawyer and tenured journalism professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

A leading authority on public access to information, who championed the "people's right to know," Scher served as chief counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Access to Government Information, in Washington, D.C. Headed by Representative John E. Moss of California, the committee was created in 1955 to investigate cases of news suppression by government agencies, a precursor to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Freedom of Information Act took 12 years to get through Congress.

"To me," Scher wrote, "the basis of civil rights is freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of association. You can't apprise your fellow man of injustice if you can't talk about it." Provided by Wikipedia