Biography
James McLaughlin is deputy general counsel of The Washington Post, where is principally responsible for newsroom-related legal issues and litigation. His work at The Post includes prepublication review of content, defense of actual or threatened libel claims, newsgathering advice, First Amendment issues, subpoenas, and FOIA. Since 2015, he has also served as the Post’s director of government affairs, overseeing its participation in legislative, regulatory, and industry matters. Before coming to The Post in 2006, he worked at two Washington, D.C. law firms (Covington & Burling and Zuckerman Spaeder) and, in 2003-04,, served as the McCormick Tribune Legal Fellow at The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. He is a graduate of Amherst College (1995) and Yale Law School (1998), where he was senior editor of the Yale Law Journal, and a former law clerk to the Honorable Anthony J. Scirica of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. McLaughlin serves on several news industry-related boards of directors, and teaches media law as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center.