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WASHINGTON (ABC 4 Utah) The Radio Television Digital News Foundation hosted its 25th annual First Amendment Awards dinner Wednesday in Washington D.C.

The First Amendment Awards celebration honors working journalists and corporate executives for their hard work and dedication in the television broadcasting industry.Nexstar Chairman, President and CEO, Perry Sook received the First Amendment Service Award.

"Our local television stations do two things: one we produce local content which is our service to the community and our identity, and we help local advertisers and local businesses grow," said Sook.

"Thirty years I've been in the business, 15 with Perry, the man has lived up to the vision of everything he set out to do when he started this company," said Timothy Busch, Nexstar Executive VP and Co-Chief Operating Officer.

Nexstar started with just one station 19 years ago. It now owns, operates and provides sales and other services to 105 television stations reaching approximately 15.6 percent of all US television households. Sook says it's all about viewers having access to their news on a 24/7 basis.

"We have also endeavored to offer local news throughout the day so that if you're working shift work 3 to 11 we have a newscast for you early afternoon or perhaps late night..or we have expanded our morning shows," said Sook.

Sook has 33 years of experience in the television and radio broadcasting industry and credits the viewers for the success of his business.

"For viewers and advertisers, coupling digital and broadcast is an unbeatable combination," said Sook.

Also honored at the event was Bob Simon, former correspondent for CBS News and 60 Minutes and journalists Steven Stolid and James Foley who received the Citation of Courage Award.

Nexstar is the parent company of ABC 4 Utah and Utah's CW30.

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Nexstar CEO honored at First Amendment Awards

The Radio Television Digital News Foundation hosts its 25th Annual First Amendment Awards Dinner tonight in Washington D.C. And among the honorees was Perry Sook, President and CEO of WEHT's parent company, Nexstar Broadcasting.

The First Amendment Awards celebration honors working journalists and corporate executives for their hard work and dedication in the television broadcasting industry. Wednesday night, Nexstar's Chairman, President, and CEO, Perry Sook received the First Amendment Service Award.

"Our local television stations do two things," said Sook. "One we produce local content which is our service to the community and our identity, and we help local advertisers and local businesses grow."

"30 years I've been in the business, 15 with Perry," said Nexstar Co-Chief Operating Officer Tim Busch. "The man has lived up to the vision of everything he set out to do when he started this company."

Nexstar started with just one station 19 years ago. It now owns, operates, and provides sales and other services to 105 television stations reaching approximately 15.6% of all us television households. Sook says it's all about viewers having access to their news on a 24/7 basis.

"We have also endeavored to offer local news throughout the day," said Sook, "so that if you're working shift work 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., we have a newscast for you early afternoon or perhaps late night, or we have expanded our morning shows."

Sook has 33 years of experience in the television and radio broadcasting industry and credits the viewers for the success of his business

"For viewers and advertisers," said Sook, "coupling digital and broadcast is an unbeatable combination."

Also honored tonight was CBS News Correspondent Bob Simon, who was killed in a car crash last month, and journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, who were abducted and beheaded by ISIS last year.

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Nexstar President and CEO Receives First Amendment Service Award

First Amendment advocates want more marathon bombing trial video released
First Amendment advocates are fighting to have more of the video and photos being shown in the Boston Marathon bombing trial released to the public. The vide...

By: WCVB Channel 5 Boston

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First Amendment advocates want more marathon bombing trial video released - Video

The Food and Drug Administration is proposing to allow pharmaceutical companies to contradict official safety warnings in sales presentations to customers.

While an FDA warning about a drugs dangers can scare off buyers, the new proposal would allow the companies to present customers with information that undermines official warnings as long as it comes from a peer-reviewed journal article.

The proposal is supported by pharmaceutical manufacturers, who argue that the policy would allow them to give doctors and hospitals the benefits of the latest research.

But the proposal is drawing an avalanche of criticism from public health advocates who argue that because individual studies can differwidelyin their results, a drug company could easily mislead customers - and possibly endanger patients - by presenting only a selection of new research.

Most such research is paid for by pharmaceutical companies and while the academic journals who publish their results seek to weed out error, they are not always successful.

The proposal seriously undermines FDA authority, Sidney M. Wolfe, founder of Public Citizens Health Research Group wrote Wednesdayto the agency. Its main supporters are drug companies and their associations, all of which would benefit from being allowed and encouraged to sell more drugs by making them seem safer than FDA has judged them to be.

Under the proposal, FDA would not object to the distribution of new risk information that rebuts, mitigates, or refines risk information in the approved labeling. The studies must be well-designed and at least as informative as the data sources that the FDA used in generating the official warning.

For example, under the proposal a drug-maker could present evidence that the severity or frequency of a side effect is less than what is suggested by the FDA-approved label. Or it could question whether the drug causes the side effect at all.

Exactly what drug-makers can tell customers about their products has been the subject of regulation and sometimes - such as when the side effect has led to heart attacks, cancer, or suicide - billion-dollar penalties. But the industry has pushed back in recent years, arguing that under First Amendment, the government cannot curtail their right to disseminate information.

The proposal seems bound to increase drug sales because it is explicitly geared toward undermining the FDA warnings, rather than enhancing them. The proposal allows the dissemination of information that rebuts or mitigates the risk identified by the FDA, or information that "refines" the risk as long as it does not indicate greater seriousness of the risk. In other words, the proposed guidance does not cover the case when a drug may be more dangerous than the FDA-approved label suggests.

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Wonkblog: How the First Amendment is undermining the FDAs power to regulate drugs

Sen. Paul Thurmond, R-Charleston

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COLUMBIA A bill aimed at protecting innocent people from mug shot extortion is shaping up to be a First Amendment fight.

Lawmakers led by Sen. Paul Thurmond, R-Charleston, are working on legislation that would require websites take down booking photos if the people arent found guilty. Some sites charge hundreds of dollars to do so, guilty or innocent, a practice Thurmond calls extortion.

But the South Carolina Press Association, of which The Post and Courier is a member, said at a hearing Wednesday that media outlets such as newspapers and TV stations should be exempt. They routinely publish mug shots as part of reporting the news, and telling them what they can and cant post violates the Constitution, said Executive Director Bill Rogers.

You cant go back and rewrite history; the newspapers are an every day report on history, Rogers said. This is a real First Amendment issue here.

The association has proposed an exemption for news organizations similar to one in Georgia, but Thurmond said he plans to push to include them. Under his proposal, the text of news articles could stay up, but the status of the charges would have to be updated and the photos taken down upon written request. The association opposes that idea.

Thurmond said his proposal is similar to the corrections newspapers run as standard policy and that mug shots are government property.

I think that they have an obligation to update it appropriately, Thurmond said. Why is that unreasonable?

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Mug shot extortion bill in S.C. Senate setting up First Amendment fight