Kudos to The New York Times for an editorial Tuesday scolding Quinnipiac University officials for curbing free speech through its repressive policies toward a student newspaper and the SPJ student chapter.

During the past few months the university hasn’t cared for an independent student online paper, the Quad News. So they told employees and athletes that they couldn’t talk to the journalists. Then last month the university threatened to ban from campus the student SPJ chapter because of its support for the independent Web site. While the university has lifted its gag on employees, it still hasn’t withdrawn its threats toward the SPJ chapter and apologized.

The New York Times writes, “Such intimidation does not speak well of Quinnipiac’s commitment to freedom of speech, open-mindedness or academic inquiry.” That’s gracious of the newspaper. But let’s translate it into plain talk: Buck up, Quinnipiac. Remember what this country is about, and remember your place as an institution of knowledge, tolerance and open discourse. The public expects more from our universities. Back off the SPJ chapter, apologize to the students, and move on.

Chicago police arrested a freelance photographer, jailed him, confiscated his equipment and deleted photos, according to a story by CBS channel 2. Mike Anzaldi was covering a police shooting when he got into a dispute with officers. Police say he crossed a police line without permission and the photographer said he didn’t. The photographer was cuffed, jailed for nine hours, and had his video camera and two still cameras confiscated. When he got the still cameras back police had erased more than 500 images. They kept his video camera.

An interesting detail that makes this situation more complicated than most is that the city of Chicago has an ordinance that allows journalists who have press credentials to cross police lines. Anzaldi says he has press credentials.

But regardless of who did what, the fact police would go to the trouble to arrest a photographer and confiscate his equipment is going too far. Even worse – deleting the photo images. What did they want to hide from the public? That, to me, is a form of flat out prior restraint. If a mayor walked into a newsroom and deleted photos he or she didn’t like, preventing their publication, then we would be grabbing for torches and pitchforks. Chicago police should drop any charges against Anzaldi immediately, and apologize profusely for deleting his photos.

The South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division is going to start charging the media $25 for each time they want a routine criminal background history on suspects, according to a story in The Post and Courier. Before, the press got two checks per day for free, provided to them quickly via e-mail, but budget cuts are forcing them to start charging for all checks (except if you are a charitable group – then it’s only $8 per check). Also, the agency will provide free reports to the media when it involves news releases and news conferences. In other words, they will readily provide information for free when it suits their purposes, but charge folks $25 a pop when it doesn’t.

This is just wrong. The state Freedom of Information act allows agencies to charge reasonable fees that reflect the actual cost of researching and copying records. Clearly, it does not cost $25 to plunk out a background report on someone electronically and send it via e-mail. That agency is using the fee to boost its coffers – as a profit-generating mechanism. When questioned, the agency did not know how much the background requests cost the agency or how much the agency expects to get by charging for background checks. Even more evidence that they are simply winging it and hoping to raise money beyond the actual cost of researching and copying records. I hope the state press challenge this arbitrary fee and expose it for what it is: a chance to gouge the public and press for subsidizing other law enforcement services.

The Oregon flap over defining journalists is causing some people to suggest that trade organizations (e.g., SPJ) should license journalists for official government recognition. Gulp.

The issue arose recently because of Oregon’s open meeting law that allows journalists to sit in on executive sessions as long as they don’t quote anything from the meeting (unless it’s a subject that shouldn’t be talked about in secret). As far as I know, this is the only state in the country with such a provision in the open meeting law (some states allow bodies to invite people into executive sessions, but this is the only state that requires agencies to allow journalists to sit in).

A blogger challenged the city of Lake Oswego for prohibiting him from sitting in (see below). When the city tried to develop a policy defnining “journalists” folks pounced on them. Rightly so. So now the city is trying to get a statewide discussion going, potentially leading to new legislation. This is where things could get a little funky.

Currently, it sounds like the bulk of the conversation is on how to define “news gathering representatives,” or whether real journalists should be licensed by trade organizations. Check out an Oregon Public Radio show today on the subject. I can’t speak on behalf of SPJ, but I don’t like this idea. If organizations or governments can license journalists then they can take licenses away.

In my opinion, SPJ should not license journalists and government should not be in the place to decide who gets to sit in and who doesn’t. I think there’s a possible solution, and we can avoid defining who is a journalist and who isn’t. The main purpose of allowing journalists in executive sessions is to make sure there are watchdogs to make sure the public body doesn’t talk about stuff they shouldn’t. Some states require public bodies to tape record executive sessions and if someone questions whether the discussion was appropriate that person can ask a judge to listen to it in camera. So there we have a checking function without government having to dictate who is a journalist and who isn’t. As a former City Hall reporter who covered meetings in Oregon and Washington state, I know that having a reporter sitting in is effective at preventing hanky panky, but recording meetings instead might provide some government accountability without having to give journalists special privileges over citizens.

What do you think?

If you’ve been watching the presidential debates you probably notice that they really aren’t debates. They are fabricated pseudo-news events where the candidates determine the terms and therefore get to spout off the same rehearsed messages that they are slinging at rallies and through ads. Why can’t we have real debates, real town hall meetings, and real press conferences, where citizens and the press extemporaneously engage with candidates, and where the candidates get to go at it no holds barred?

If you feel passionately about the need for presidential candidates to be required to be put in front of a crowd of people and journalists for true questioning, you can say so in an essay contest this month, sponsored by ASNE’s Sunshine Week Citizen Journalism Awards. Anyone can enter, writing 1,000 words or less, due by Nov. 10. Each monthly winner will be eligible for the grand prize to be awarded during Sunshine Week in March. See the Web site for more information.

A principal from a Texas high school didn’t care for the student paper criticizing him for a gun-slinging pep rally that some students opposed. So he censored the paper. According to a story in the Daily Sentinel, some students objected to a pep rally where students pretended to shoot their rivals in the back of the head execution-style. When the student newspaper editors criticized the rally in an editorial, Principal Nathan Chaddick deleted the paragraphs. He also forced the students to move a story about the pep rally from the front page to the third page. Chaddick justified his censorship by saying, “In a public school setting, you can’t just publish anything you want to. There is going to be some censorship and some editing if there’s something that’s inappropriate.”

This is where high school censorship has gone wild, where we teach students that questioning authority is “inappropriate.” We are teaching a whole generation of Americans that it is wrong to criticize the government. That is wrong.

Here’s what journalists can do about it: Write about it.

Following the Daily Sentinel’s story, public outrage regarding the skit and the censorship resulted in an apology from the school district, including this sentence: “The editing of the student editorial was ill advised. This has been a learning experience for everyone and we have all learned from the students.”

When principals censor student papers, they censor the future of America. Tell Americans that. Let citizens set the government straight.

Today a federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed by The Phoenix New Times against the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for the arrests last year of two of the newspaper’s executives, according to an AP story. Michael Lacey and Jim Larken were arrested last year after publishing a story that a grand jury subpoenaed the paper and two of its reporters. The charges were eventually dropped, and the two filed suit claiming negligence and that their First Amendment rights were violated. A U.S. District Court judge ruled that the county attorney and sheriff did not violate their free speech or First Amendment rights.

If newspapers don’t endorse your campaign, toss them in the trash.

Rootin’, tootin’ Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix, Ariz., (see item below, not to mention previous blog items about his disdain for FOI and the media in February and last fall) is running for re-election and one of his ads urges the public to throw away their local newspapers. In the campaign ad, the announcer says “He never gets a break from the mean-spirited liberal media.” While holding up a copy of the Arizona Republic and the East Valley Tribune, Arpaio says, “You know, It’s true. You can never believe everything you read. So when these are delivered to your house, they belong in the trash.” Then he tosses the papers in a garbage bin. Arpaio must not have been pleased that the Arizona Republic endorsed his opponent, a Democrat.

I guess Arpaio is building upon a long history of attack-the-messenger strategies, such as that expressed by Spiro Agnew: “Some newspapers are fit only to line the bottom of bird cages.”

A blogger in Oregon is questioning a state law that allows “representatives of the news media” and no other citizens to sit in on executive sessions. An author of a political blog wanted to sit in on the Lake Oswego City Council’s executive session but was told he couldn’t, according to a story in The Oregonian. Now the city is trying to come up with a policy for defining news media that would be allowed in executive sessions. One possibility is allowing journalists from “well-established” organizations producing at least 25 percent news content. Yuck!

This is one of the quirkiest open meeting law provisions in the country, having experienced it first-hand. As a cub City Hall reporter for The Columbian in Vancouver, Wash. (outside of Portland, Ore.) I had the opportunity to be told to scram when a Washington state governing body wanted to meet in executive session, but when covering meetings in Oregon I was allowed to sit in the sessions as long as I did not report what was said. It’s a great gig for journalists in Oregon because they can make sure public bodies are meeting in secret for good reason.

But this blogger issue raises the big ugly underlying dangers of this special media exception: providing journalists special rights over citizens and forcing the government to define journalist. Gads, this opens up a can of worms that we are struggling with at the national level regarding the definition of a journalist for the federal shield law. I tend to agree with Charles Davis, director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition, who said that it’s tricky when you give journalists special rights over citizens. That makes me nervous. I also know that the quirky Oregon executive session provision works, and keeps government a little more open and honest than what I experienced as a reporter in other states.

So Oregon (and the rest of us when it comes to the federal shield law) are left with two choices: Drop the special treatment or come up with a workable definition. I hate the idea of special treatment – there are so many problems with that. Yet, I think from a practical perspective, if we don’t provide some protections for journalists then I think our Democratic society is toast, especially given what’s happened the past eight years. I think we can come up with some workable definition. I like, for example, the definition included in the new Hawaii state shield law that a journalist is anyone who: “has regularly and materially participated in the reporting or publishing of news or information of substantial public interest for the purpose of dissemination to the general public by the means of tangible or electronic media.” That really starts to get at what journalism is all about. It’s not about printing an ads-only shopper or spouting off once in a fleeting blog. It’s about helping citizens better understand their communities and holding government accountable, consistently, in print, the airwaves and online. Journalism matters.

But I feel for those folks trying to come up with a definition. Given we’re talking about Oregon here, maybe they’ll come up with the definition, ”If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.”

The Lake Oswego (Ore.) City Council  is considering adopting a policy that would define who qualifies as a “member of the news media.” Oregon has a unique Open Meetings Law that allows the news media to attend executive sessions.
The policy could set a bold precedent for other public bodies in Oregon that hold executive sessions, including other cities, counties and school districts, which could adopt similar policies in deciding who to admit and exclude when they discuss sensitive issues, according to The Oregonian. See a copy of the proposed policy here.

The paper wrote:
The wording of Lake Oswego’s draft policy focuses mostly on traditional media organizations and ignores the growing value of bloggers, said Kyu Ho Youm, a journalism professor and First Amendment expert at the University of Oregon.

“Sometimes, bloggers are now able to provide some wonderful sources of information in addition to what the public may find in the traditional news media,” he said. “I think the information gatherers should not be limited to the traditional media.”