Freedom (magazine)
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| Formation | 1968 |
|---|---|
| Type | Department of Church of Scientology |
| Purpose | Magazine published by Church of Scientology International |
| Headquarters | Hemet, California, United States |
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Chairman of Religious Technology Center
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David Miscavige |
| Website | Official website |
Freedom is a magazine published by the Church of Scientology since 1968. The magazine describes its focus as "Investigative Reporting in the Public Interest." A frequent topic is psychiatry, which Scientology strongly opposes.
A 19-part series in the magazine about the assassination of John F. Kennedy was made into the best-selling book JFK by L. Fletcher Prouty which Oliver Stone used as a source for his film JFK. In 1993, Scientologist John Carmichael was a contributing editor to Freedom.
In 1994, the magazine ran what it called an "expose" on what it described as a "history of prejudice" toward minority groups and women by the St. Petersburg Times, a newspaper which the Church of Scientology had some three months earlier accused of "inflammatory" coverage based on "lies and innuendo." It specifically mentioned the newspaper had a low percentage of African Americans in senior and management positions and quotes one former employee of the paper who claimed that it had a glass ceiling for women. Finally, it also accused the editor of the Times, Andy Barnes, of a "striking lack of sensitivity" for some of his comments regarding the newspaper's efforts to actively recruit minorities. The St. Petersburg Times cited this behavior by the organization as evidence that "[t]he Church of Scientology still uses harassment and intimidation to fight its critics."
Beth Akiyama, Scientology staffer and a member of the organization's Office of Special Affairs division, explained to the St. Petersburg Times the Church of Scientology's motivations for writing about the Times stating: "We use Freedom as our mouthpiece in this area because we don't think our good deeds have been covered enough." Akiyama said that residents of Pinellas County "only get one side of the story, basically. So we give them the other side of the story." The main writer of pieces critical of the St. Petersburg Times, Scientology spokesman Richard Haworth, was also a member of the organization's Office of Special Affairs division.
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