Thursday, December 19, 2019

In-Depth Legal Review Says Agency Controls on Reporters Are Illegal

An in-depth review of legal cases concludes that the prohibitions many government agencies have against employees speaking to reporters without permission are illegal.

The article in the Kansas Law Review also says journalists themselves should be able to bring suit to stop the gag orders, rather than waiting for an agency employee to do it.

Both the Society of Professional Journalists and the D.C. Chapter of the SPJ hailed the analysis as a breakthrough in the fight against this severe censorship that has been intensifying for over a quarter of a century.

The 70-page review analyzes dozens of Supreme Court and other legal cases. It says the “overbroad” restraints are unenforceable constitutionally, “yet still proliferate and still exert a powerful influence on the way employees behave.”

The article, by Frank LoMonte, head of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, is a broader discussion of the information that appeared in the Brechner Center Issue Brief released in October.

Patricia Gallagher Newberry, Society of Professional Journalists national president, said, “Censorship has stalked a horrific path through history. This is another instance. It is heartening to find another way to fight this trend toward silencing public employees, which SPJ has identified as a grave risk to public welfare.”

SPJ’s most recent resolution on the matter, approved at its annual meeting in September, states, “Journalists’ obligation to do all they can to seek the full truth includes fighting against barriers to understanding the full truth and reporting those barriers to the public.”

I urge all journalists, including editors and publishers, to read the Brechner Review. It not only gives the press a path for fighting these restrictions through the legal system. It empowers us right now to stand up to myriad agencies on all levels and say, “Yeah! This is censorship. This is unconstitutional.”