Presenting at Mediafest: Information Control Is One of the Deadliest Things in History

Over the next several days, MediaFest will be hosting three journalism groups  meeting together in Washington, D.C.: The Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Collegiate Press and the College Media Association. 

The following is a handout overview of the gag rule culture, written for that meeting. 

We also have a booth and will be presenting at a session Friday, call Ungagging Your Sources,.

Information Control by People in Power
Is Likely the Deadliest Thing in History.

Gag Rules Are a Huge Threat to Your Community
From the First Moment They Exist.

Over several decades, there has been a surge in agencies, official offices, businesses and others banning employees and others from speaking to the press.

In some cases they may be allowed to speak, but only with the authorities’ oversight, often through a public information office.

These restrictions always withhold information from the public and are a huge threat to the community.

It’s deeply corrupt for journalists to work under them, without openly fighting against them.

Reporters Don’t “Get the Story Anyway.”

Journalists often say some version of, “Good reporters get the story anyway.”

Actually, resourceful reporters get some story or other, anyway. 

However, with many people intimidated from speaking to us, there is still much we don’t understand. We are just oblivious to it.

We are like fishers in a small boat on the ocean, declaring a fish we have caught as THE fish.

As an example, before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, by government orders, reporters weren’t in CDC and were intensely controlled in terms of contacting staff.

 

Journalists Should Tell the Public and Openly Oppose the Rules.

Proposed ethical standard:

It is unethical journalism to report under these controlled circumstances and not carefully explain the restrictions to the public and openly oppose them.

SPJ has issued a call to action for journalists to, among other things:

-Research and report on speech controls in particular states, localities or institutions.

-Educate journalists, officials and others on the history and the impact of such censorship.

-Join forces with other news organizations, advocacy groups, journalism schools, and press associations to demand answers from public officials and mount legal challenges.

-Push for open access to people, along with pushing for open access to documents, to help ensure the documents are fully understood.

There Is a Legal Path By Which Journalists Can Take Action

Journalists can sue against the restrictions on their own accord, using a legal path researched by Frank LoMonte, Co-Chair of the Free Speech and Free Press Committee of the American Bar Association and senior counsel at CNN.

In three cases journalists have filed suit and made tremendous progress against these rules.

Brittany Hailer, may she be enshrined in journalism history, brought what is believed to be the first such case by a journalist. Settled in 2024, it illustrated the extreme human rights implications of these silencing rules. Hailer sued the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh. With about 1500 inmates and an alleged high death rate, the facility banned any employee or contractor speaking to reporters other than the warden. That included medical personnel. 

In the settlement of the case, the board of corrections agreed, “That its employees and contractors have constitutional rights to speak on matters of public concern when acting as private citizens and not purporting to represent the view of the [Allegheny County Board of Corrections].”

A ruling by a federal court in March, the New York newspaper The Reporter the right to continue with a suit. The ruling said that, as alleged, the Delaware county’s directive against speaking to the press “‘imposes a significant burden on the public’s right to read and hear what the employees would otherwise have written and said,’” quoting an important 1995 Supreme Court ruling on government employees’ speech, United States v. National Treasury Employees Union.

The Key Biscayne Independent news outlet filed a federal lawsuit June 24 against the Village of Key Biscayne, claiming the media policy the village adopted in November is an unconstitutional infringement on the free press. The Village has canceled that policy for now.

See: Profficecensorship.blogspot.com

A paper for the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference, March 28, 2025.
Email:  Kathryn Foxhall: kfoxhall@verizon.net.