FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: December 10, 2009
Contact: Moira Vahey, 202-265-1490 x 31

WASHINGTON -- C. Edwin Baker, a prominent communications law scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, defender of the First Amendment, and advocate for media and democracy, died Dec. 8. He was 62.

Robert W. McChesney, co-founder of Free Press, made the following statement:

"It is impossible to gauge the immensity of the loss with Ed Baker's passing. He has been the leading constitutional scholar on matters of freedom of the press for two decades. His commitment to a strong free press and a vibrant democracy guided all of his work. He combined open-mindedness, curiosity, a lack of pretension and creativity with intellectual rigor, rare knowledge and rock-hard principles in a manner that was unmatched.

"Ed was a singularly generous scholar, always willing to assist a fellow scholar or activist with as much of his time as was necessary. I am going to miss our long telephone calls where we hashed out ideas for resurrecting journalism. I relied upon him as much as any scholar for my own work. Anytime my work broached constitutional issues it relied upon his direct input and the foundation he provided. The American people and the Constitution have lost a friend and a defender. And those of us who knew Ed have lost a dear friend and a kind, sweet man."

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