Richard Winfield, Protector of Press Freedom, Dies at 91

Richard N.Winfield, a prominent First Amendment lawyer who worked to protect press freedoms as the longtime general counsel for The Associated Press and who later organized volunteer lawyers to promote free expression and human rights around the world, died on Oct.

22 in Manhattan.He was 91.His death, in a hospital, was caused by head injuries incurred when he fell on Oct.

7, his daughter Nicole Winfield said.As The A.P.’s chief lawyer for three decades and as counsel for other media organizations, Mr.Winfield honed a legal strategy to protect reporters’ confidential sources and unpublished notes, challenged efforts to close court proceedings to the press, persuaded judges to allow camera in courtrooms, and insulated newspapers from libel suits if they reprinted articles supplied by wire services like The A.P., a news cooperative.Broadening the reach of freedom of information acts, during the 2004 presidential campaign he guided A.P.

reporters in gaining access to the Vietnam-era military records of both President George W.Bush and Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee.

At issue were whether Mr.Bush had fulfilled his service requirements and whether Mr.

Kerry had recalled his combat experience accurately.In 2000, after he retired from the law firm Rogers & Wells in Manhattan, Mr.Winfield helped found the International Senior Lawyers Project, which organizes volunteer lawyers to promote free expression, court reform and accountability, and protects journalists against government suppression and heavy-handed judicial constraints.A report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2021 cited the project’s intervention on behalf of Issa Amro, described as a Palestinian human rights defender who was tried for “disturbing public order, hate speech, and insult” before an Israeli military court and a magistrate’s court in the West Bank city of Hebron.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable...