A second legal case was filed this month on behalf of journalists opposing public agencies having restrictions on employees speaking to reporters.
In early December the owners of The Reporter sued the Delaware County (New York) Board of Supervisors for the county attorney’s mandate that all communications with the newspaper go through her office.
Previously the Board of Supervisors had revoked the paper’s designation as the outlet for legal advertising for the county, an action taken in retaliation for news coverage the Board of Supervisors did not like, the complaint alleges. It asserts that revocation violated the newspaper’s First Amendment rights.
After the Board’s action got coverage in the New York Times, along with such instances in other newspapers, the county attorney said that all communications with the paper should come through her, the paper’s complaint said.
It asserted, “This Court should also declare that Delaware County and Defendant Amy Merklen, by issuing the gag directive, violated both The Reporter’s First Amendment right to receive information from willing speakers and County employees’ First Amendment right to speak on matters of public concern, and thereby enjoin the enforcement of the gag directive.”
The action follows the suit by Brittany Hailer filed in August challenging the Allegheny County Jail in Pennsylvania for its policies prohibiting staff and contractors from speaking to the media or others about the jail without approval.
The Hailer suit is believed to be the first one ever filed on behalf of a journalist against these gag rules in public agencies. Other suits against such gag rules have been filed and often won by parties including employees and unions. The Hailer suit is still before the court.
At the time the Hailer suit was filed Claire Regan, then president of the Society of Professional Journalists, said, “These speech bans, which journalists have seen grow more pervasive and controlling, are among the most damaging threats to free speech and public welfare today.”
The Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic and attorney Michael J. Grygiel are representing the New York newspaper. The Yale Law School Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press are representing Brittany Hailer in Pennsylvania.
News coverage is here and here.
Friday, December 15, 2023
Monday, December 4, 2023
From Across the Nation: What the Culture of Gag Rules Does to Us
The Pittsburg Post-Gazette editorial board said that the journalist’s lawsuit, filed in August, against a public agency for banning employees from speaking to reporters, “could transform government transparency.”
Investigative journalist Brittany Hailer has sued the Allegheny County Jail for having those prohibitions, even while the facility allegedly has a high death rate.
On a recent Zoom program, Hailer said, “Something that we talk about a lot, in the death-in-custody stuff that we’re doing, is: had George Floyd crossed the threshold of his jail we never would have known what would happen. It would have entered a black box of information.”
Elsewhere, in June, a Louisville Courier Journal review of 35 Kentucky state and local agencies' policies found “that 70% restrict or prohibit employees from talking to news outlets − some in ways that legal scholars say are unconstitutional.”
The Isthmus news outlet in Madison, Wisconsin, said a public information office physically blocked a reporter from approaching a public official but it’s much more common for PIOs to stymie reporters, “by ignoring emails, refusing to allow reporters to speak directly to frontline workers, requiring that reporters submit written questions and sitting on requested documents.”
Below is some of the coverage of the gag rule norm from around the nation, as well as online discussions of the Hailer case, and other resources.
Recent local coverage:
Isthmus, Madison, Wisconsin, July 10, 2023
“Running interference: Public information officers often forget the ‘public’ in their titles”
Judith Davidoff
https://isthmus.com/opinion/from-the-editor/running-interference/
Triblive, Southwestern Pennsylvania, September 14, 2023
“Aspinwall’s revived media policy raises freedom of speech concerns”
Michael Divittorio
https://triblive.com/local/valley-news-dispatch/aspinwall-revived-media-policy-raises-freedom-of-speech-concerns/
Pittsburg Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, September 04, 2023
“Editorial: Pittsburgh journalist’s lawsuit could transform government transparency”
Editorial Board
https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2023/09/04/brittany-hailer-lawsuit-allegheny-county-jail/stories/20230904001
[Paywall applies.]
Louisville Courier Journal, Louisville, Kentucky, June 14, 2023
“‘Censorship by PIO’: Kentucky agencies' strict media rules putting a gag on workers”
Andrew Wolfson
Censorship: Are Kentucky agencies blocking employees' free speech? (courier-journal.com)
[Paywall applies.]
Recent Discussion Sessions on the Allegheny County Jail Suit
-- Recently, the New England Chapter of SPJ sponsored a zoom program on the Allegheny suit, moderated by First Amendment attorney Frank LoMonte, who has written a legal pathway for such actions.
-- A podcast by the Maryland, Delaware, and District of Columbia Press Association features the lawsuit by journalist Brittany Hailer and one of her lawyers, RCFP attorney Paula Knudsen Burke.
Earlier Resources:
-- The Society of Professional Journalists has said the controls are censorship and authoritarian.
-- Among many communications over years, 25 journalism and other groups wrote to the Biden Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy asking for elimination of such restrictions in the federal government.
--Glen Nowak, a former CDC head of media relations and a longtime communications employee, has said that since the 1980s the restrictions on CDC staff have grown tighter with each presidential administration; every contact with a reporter is controlled by the higher political levels; and that this system “works” for officials in terms of suppressing information.
-- A 2022 Columbia Journalism Review article looks at the history of the restraints.
-- Journalism groups’ FOI officers told the New York Times in 2022 “The press should not be taking the risk of assuming that what we get is all there is when so many people are silenced. We should be openly fighting these controls.” The longer version of the letter is here.
-- “Editor and Publisher” featured the issue in October 2021.
Investigative journalist Brittany Hailer has sued the Allegheny County Jail for having those prohibitions, even while the facility allegedly has a high death rate.
On a recent Zoom program, Hailer said, “Something that we talk about a lot, in the death-in-custody stuff that we’re doing, is: had George Floyd crossed the threshold of his jail we never would have known what would happen. It would have entered a black box of information.”
Elsewhere, in June, a Louisville Courier Journal review of 35 Kentucky state and local agencies' policies found “that 70% restrict or prohibit employees from talking to news outlets − some in ways that legal scholars say are unconstitutional.”
The Isthmus news outlet in Madison, Wisconsin, said a public information office physically blocked a reporter from approaching a public official but it’s much more common for PIOs to stymie reporters, “by ignoring emails, refusing to allow reporters to speak directly to frontline workers, requiring that reporters submit written questions and sitting on requested documents.”
Below is some of the coverage of the gag rule norm from around the nation, as well as online discussions of the Hailer case, and other resources.
Recent local coverage:
Isthmus, Madison, Wisconsin, July 10, 2023
“Running interference: Public information officers often forget the ‘public’ in their titles”
Judith Davidoff
https://isthmus.com/opinion/from-the-editor/running-interference/
Triblive, Southwestern Pennsylvania, September 14, 2023
“Aspinwall’s revived media policy raises freedom of speech concerns”
Michael Divittorio
https://triblive.com/local/valley-news-dispatch/aspinwall-revived-media-policy-raises-freedom-of-speech-concerns/
Pittsburg Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, September 04, 2023
“Editorial: Pittsburgh journalist’s lawsuit could transform government transparency”
Editorial Board
https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2023/09/04/brittany-hailer-lawsuit-allegheny-county-jail/stories/20230904001
[Paywall applies.]
Louisville Courier Journal, Louisville, Kentucky, June 14, 2023
“‘Censorship by PIO’: Kentucky agencies' strict media rules putting a gag on workers”
Andrew Wolfson
Censorship: Are Kentucky agencies blocking employees' free speech? (courier-journal.com)
[Paywall applies.]
Recent Discussion Sessions on the Allegheny County Jail Suit
-- Recently, the New England Chapter of SPJ sponsored a zoom program on the Allegheny suit, moderated by First Amendment attorney Frank LoMonte, who has written a legal pathway for such actions.
-- A podcast by the Maryland, Delaware, and District of Columbia Press Association features the lawsuit by journalist Brittany Hailer and one of her lawyers, RCFP attorney Paula Knudsen Burke.
Earlier Resources:
-- The Society of Professional Journalists has said the controls are censorship and authoritarian.
-- Among many communications over years, 25 journalism and other groups wrote to the Biden Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy asking for elimination of such restrictions in the federal government.
--Glen Nowak, a former CDC head of media relations and a longtime communications employee, has said that since the 1980s the restrictions on CDC staff have grown tighter with each presidential administration; every contact with a reporter is controlled by the higher political levels; and that this system “works” for officials in terms of suppressing information.
-- A 2022 Columbia Journalism Review article looks at the history of the restraints.
-- Journalism groups’ FOI officers told the New York Times in 2022 “The press should not be taking the risk of assuming that what we get is all there is when so many people are silenced. We should be openly fighting these controls.” The longer version of the letter is here.
-- “Editor and Publisher” featured the issue in October 2021.
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