{"id":5122,"date":"2020-05-17T08:24:26","date_gmt":"2020-05-17T12:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/?p=5122"},"modified":"2020-05-17T08:24:26","modified_gmt":"2020-05-17T12:24:26","slug":"journalists-accused-of-trespassing-at-liberty-university-will-not-face-criminal-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/?p=5122","title":{"rendered":"Journalists accused of trespassing at Liberty University will not face criminal charge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lynchburg prosecutors Friday announced they will not pursue criminal charges against two journalists who Liberty University police accused of trespassing on campus while covering the school&rsquo;s response to the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Lynchburg Commonwealth&rsquo;s Attorney Bethany Harrison said the journalists &mdash; Alec MacGillis, a reporter for ProPublica, and Julia Rendleman, a freelance photographer for The New York Times &mdash; violated the misdemeanor trespassing statute when they made unauthorized visits to campus in late March.<\/p>\n<p>But Harrison&rsquo;s office ultimately decided not to pursue the case in court after consulting with Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Criminal Trespass Charges Dropped Against Two Journos Who Reported At Liberty U <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gdE6mh685a\">https:\/\/t.co\/gdE6mh685a<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/I6uOvFtaaK\">pic.twitter.com\/I6uOvFtaaK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Talking Points Memo (@TPM) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TPM\/status\/1261394058422951936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 15, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/O-cLNCwFcog\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p> \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.godanriver.com\/news\/state\/journalists-accused-of-trespassing-at-liberty-university-will-not-face-criminal-charge\/article_5345f758-a6e7-59ce-8721-c1f760534958.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">READ MORE &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lynchburg prosecutors Friday announced they will not pursue criminal charges against two journalists who Liberty University police accused o&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/?p=5122\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Journalists accused of trespassing at Liberty University will not face criminal charge<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-5122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-journalists-accused-of-trespassing-at-liberty-university-will-not-face-criminal-charge","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pJcR0-1kC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5123,"href":"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122\/revisions\/5123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libertystudentnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}