⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The Sixth Circuit hears a challenge to Tennessee's twenty-five-foot police buffer law. Gannett and other news organizations say their reporters need to get close enough to police activity to hear, film, and ask questions at protests, crime scenes, and traffic stops. The challenged 2025 law makes it a misdemeanor intentionally to approach within twenty-five feet after an officer orders a person to stop approaching or retreat, while lawfully performing specified duties. Those include a lawful traffic stop, investigation of the scene of an alleged crime, or an ongoing and immediate threat to public safety. The news organizations sued to block enforcement. A district judge refused a preliminary injunction—a temporary order that would stop enforcement while the case proceeds—and they appealed. Grayson Clary of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press will argue that the law gives officers too much discretion and discourages protected newsgathering. The state will defend the law as a clear safety rule. When the lawyers discuss vagueness, they mean fair notice of what is forbidden and limits on arbitrary enforcement—not merely whether twenty-five feet can be measured. There is also a threshold question: whether the plaintiffs face a sufficiently real risk of enforcement to ask a federal court to intervene.

Gannett Company, Inc. v. Long (No. 26-5182) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, argued October 21, 2026.