On June 16 a letter from Freedom of Information officers from two journalism groups appeared in the New York Times.
The longer version of that letter, copied to most of the editorial staff of the New York Times, is below.
To the New York Times Editorial Board:
Your opinion piece of March 18, America Has a Free Speech Problem, said, “This editorial board plans to identify a wide range of threats to freedom of speech in the coming months and to offer possible solutions.”
While that piece focused in large part on so-called “cancel culture,” we believe that one of the most dangerous threats to free speech and press is the tremendous growth over about three decades of government offices and agencies, businesses and other institutions banning employees from speaking to journalists. Sometimes the bans are total. Sometimes they prohibit contact unless the staff member or the reporter notifies gatekeepers, often through public information offices. According to Society of Professional Journalists surveys and discussions with journalists and others, these controls on access to information and experts have become a cultural norm.
Public employees, at least, not only have a First Amendment right, they have an obligation to be open and transparent about the work they do on behalf of the public. It is work paid for by the taxpayers, which the government has no right to withhold or suppress.
Last year 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 and for restoring journalists' access to agencies.
Despite our pride in some outstanding journalism, we don’t believe any news outlet overcomes all the blockages and the intimidation of source people that this gatekeeping censorship creates. Quite enough information is successfully hidden to be corrosive. We don’t believe the press should be taking the risk of assuming what we get is all there is when there are so many people silenced. We should be openly fighting these policies and informing the public about the controls.
As the Covid death toll mounted in 2020, for instance, CDC told their media relations staff to remember that just because reporters persist in asking to talk to someone in the agency that doesn’t mean they have to be allowed to.
Now with at least six million dead and a history of shortcomings in containing the pandemic, that censorship process at the CDC and many other agencies remains, with officials deciding behind closed doors who can speak to which reporter and what may be discussed.
Please note that the extensive legal analysis from The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information finds that these constraints, although very common, are unconstitutional and that many courts have agreed with that. The longer version is a legal brief.
Other resources are below.
As you analyze the threats to free speech it’s critical for this and other nations that you focus on these restraints.
Thank you.
Haisten Willis
Chair, Freedom of Information Committee
Society of Professional Journalists
Kathryn Foxhall
Vice Chair, Freedom of Information Committee
Society of Professional Journalists
Timothy Wheeler
Chair, Freedom of Information Task Force
Society of Environmental Journalists
