I’m a firm believer that if you leave things to chance, chances are you won’t like the outcome.

That is why as this portion of the 111th session of Congress winds down to the August recess, SPJ needs to make an all-out push to get SB 448, The Free Flow of Information Act, passed. We can’t leave this to chance. Not any more.

If it were up to me and most of our 8.000 members, we’d have one. But, it’s far from my control and that is why a last-minute push is so vital. And, as a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, your voice needs to be heard in the next two weeks.

Last week I visited Capitol Hill and left personal letters on the desks of 22 U.S. senators asking for their support of SB 448. Some of the senators who got my letter are already backers, some aren’t so sure. Key members on both sides of the aisle have letters from me.

We are closer now than we’ve ever been. Our push this time is to get floor time and a full senate vote. Our belief is we have the votes to pass the measure, we just need to convince key members that this is worthy of being introduced.

This week, I will be writing a guest op-ed piece that headquarters will make available to the media by week’s end. My hope, ambitious as it may sound, is to see it in print, the web or delivered on air in all 50 states. My goal is 100 media outlets. If you work for a media outlet and are a member of SPJ, you can do us a great service by working to get this printed or aired at your paper or station. Or get it on your site and bolster it with blog posts. However we do it, we need to get our voice out there to these senators before they go to recess.

I would also encourage journalists to consider this a prime story. I, and other SPJ officers and legal counsel, can make ourselves available for interviews in the coming weeks to get the story more play.

SPJ isn’t the only journalism organization in the coalition supporting this law and I don’t know what other leaders are telling their members, but I can tell you that 8,000 journalists hitting pressure points in the next two weeks will be hard to ignore. SPJ will be acting and doing so decisively.

There is no room for chance, so please do your part.

Across West Virginia many of our state’s 1.8 million people are mourning the loss of U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd.

To many, Byrd was the state’s saving grace when it came to appropriations. Yes, many outsiders referred to him as the “King of Pork,” a badge he wore with honor. I understood years ago that Byrd’s lasting gift to the state was all of the projects federal dollars could buy. Without Byrd’s clout West Virginia would be hard pressed to have the highway system is does. The same can be said for its medical centers and health care, schools, airports, buildings, bridges and the vast number of businesses.

But, this isn’t about Bob Byrd the appropriator. It’s about Bob Byrd, the defender of the Constitution and the best friend the First Amendment could ever want. I’m proud to say, as the president of SPJ, that my U.S. senator was a stalwart for press rights.

The past two years I had paid visits to his office on Capitol Hill to seek his support for the federal shield law to protect reporters’ sources. In frail health even then, I met with his legal aide who assured me that the senator was 100 percent behind our efforts to protect sources coming forth and reporting government misdeeds. He once told me in an interview back in 1992 that he admired the press and saw us as freedom fighters who served as the watchdogs on government. To his dying day, Bob Byrd held the Constitution sacred. Pity the person, special interest group or lobbyist who dared play fast and loose with our Founding Fathers’ governmental framework. Pity anyone who tried to undermine the press.

To me and many West Virginians, Byrd was larger than life. Yes, it became somewhat embarrassing to have his name on so many buildings and highways, but consider this: In the 147-year history of our state, no one is more associated with West Virginia than Robert C. Byrd. Maybe no one ever will. His legacy in the senate is second to no one.

The sum of his work will endure for decades in our state. But bridges and roads will give way, building will be replaced and jobs will come and go. Someone, certainly not of Byrd’s stature, will be asked to step in and help West Virginia gain its share of the federal appropriations. I’m not so worried about that.

Replacing Senator Byrd as a fervorous defender of the Constitution and champion for First Amendment rights will be more difficult. Today, there seems to be more of an inclination to skirt constitutional rights than to embrace them. For that reason, the whole nation needs to mourn his loss.

We will miss United States Sen. Robert C. Byrd, but more importantly, we need to replace him. For our Constitution’s sake.

(This column appeared in a recent issue of the Pacific Daily News in Guam.)

I still remember that Monday morning in October, 2003 when officials from the Morgantown, W.Va. city fire department walked into our newsroom with a search warrant wanting photos taken over the weekend of a ruckus group of students celebrating a football victory.

What they were looking for were more than 400 photos taken by our three staff photographers during the melee that followed a West Virginia University win on that previous Saturday. Fires were set in dumpsters and couches were ablaze. Hoping to use our images to identify as many culprits they walked in armed with the warrant.

I managed to stall the search warrant because the photographers were away from the office and the computers were password sensitive. The fire officials were not hardnosed about it. They didn’t want to carry out entire computers, but they could have. They left and said they would return. Our lawyer intervened and using the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 we successfully quashed the search warrant and even talk of a subpoena. Cooler heads and legal minds prevailed.

But in the last two months, we’ve seen what police, bent on strong-arming newsrooms, can do in the name of their brand of justice. In April the student newspaper at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. was stormed by police and a search warrant-wielding prosecutor looking for photos of JMU students who might have been involved in a riot after a festival in that city. They took the nearly 600 images from The Breeze and were unrelenting until a number of First Amendment lawyers from the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C. and support from the Society of Professional Journalists impressed upon them the Privacy Protection Act was violated and their actions were illegal.

Most recently, Guam’s KUAM suffered in intrusion into its newsroom by police officials armed again with an inappropriate search warrant. These police forced everyone from the newsroom and reportedly scoured all the desks and materials in search of a lone piece of paper.

In both cases, the police were carrying the wrong legal instrument for such attempts. In both cases, prosecutors and judges who seem to spend less time with law books and too much time watching Law and Order signed off on these illegal invasions of newsrooms.

Let’s be clear at this point. Search warrants on newsrooms violate federal law and represent an affront to the First Amendment which prohibits the making of any law that infringes on the freedom of the press. And, unreasonable search and seizure on a newsroom for its reporting materials is such a violation.
What happened in Guam and Harrisonburg has to stop. The press has to fight these violations with equal parts vigor and defiance. Aggressive lawsuits to stem this type of behavior are needed to send strong messages that America’s newsrooms are not open for invasion. Powerful messages to justice officials all the way to the benches are needed to make sure this country is not being converted into a police state where overzealous prosecutors try to arm law enforcement officials with battering rams in the form of search warrants.

What happened that day nearly seven years ago in my newsroom was my first taste of how an unlawful search can intimidate and stall a newsroom. It made us think about our vulnerability when those who uphold the law twist or ignore it to their own ends.

The Society of Professional Journalists, the largest and most dominant journalism organization in the United States, stands behind newsroom leaders when their workplaces are breached and federal law is violated. These actions have to stop or we’ve undermined more than 230 years of constitutional liberties, altered our path and crippled an entire citizenry that depends on a free press.

So, this morning walking into the office I join paths with a colleague who asks me how I like being SPJ’s president and what I’ve been doing lately. She caught me at a bad time, or maybe a good one because I then had to explain to her how I spend most of my Tuesday afternoon arguing with network people over their practice of paying licensing rights to sources for their exclusive stories. In short, buying news.

SPJ issued a press release Tuesday via its ethics committee condemning ABC news for paying $200,000 to the family and attorney of Casey Anthony, the woman accused of killing her daughter, Caylee. ABC News said it paid this astronomical amount for videos and family photos it used in its coverage of the story. Insiders told me it’s a lot of pay for photos and videos and that amount was intended to secure an exclusive interview. But, that interview never happened and ABC denies they were ever trying to buy a sit-down with the alleged killer. Again, off-the-record comments to me this week suggest that’s not true. In a world where the truth seems to take a back seat to integrity, it’s difficult to say.

But, back to my colleague. Walking into the building and riding up in the elevator I explain all of this to her as best I can in the short time. She looks at me in astonishment. Without prompting she says something very profound. At this very moment I wish every network news director could see her expression and hear her as she says “Oh, Kevin, doesn’t paying for news seriously call into question the very heart of the truth?” Bingo.

She goes on, “I mean how do you measure truth when price is attached? Is there more truth as the price goes higher? This seems very disturbing to me.”

And there you have it. The very point SPJ has been trying to make. Conveyed by someone who knows nothing of journalism but is a consumer of news, she finds this problematic.

When ABC pays licensing rights (or whatever legal term or contorted euphemism they want to attach to it) for an interview, when NBC provides free plane rides to a father and his son from South America to Florida and just happens to land that all-exclusive interview in the process, it taints the very heart of what journalists do. Is a source expected to tell one version of the truth for $5,000 and another if the price is $10,000? I want to know. Certainly my colleague raises the issue.

And here’s the real question network executives have to answer: How long do you think it will take to erode your credibility with the American public if news stories came with tags like “ABC paid $20,000 for this interview”? Or “NBC wants you to know that we provided plane trips, hotel accommodations and other costs to our source on this story?” Not long. Which might explain why ABC sat on its Anthony payout for about two years until it was revealed in a court hearing last week.

I teach my journalism students the very first week that they have a duty to: 1. The Truth and  2. Fairness. Someone once told me after reading a city council story of mine that he thought I got it all right and I did a fair job of presenting all sides in a rather contentious debate the evening before. I tell my students that should be the ultimate compliment for a journalist. You got it truthful and you were fair. Remember that and everything else will fall into place. That night I never had to reach into my pocket and produce $20 bills to get it right or make it fair.

So, when I see money being passed around for interviews or gifts offered I wonder if truth and fairness are being considered or is it simply a network mentality that the only stories worth telling have to come with a price tag.

And lastly, I wonder what the more than 300 ABC employees who might lose their jobs if enough retirements don’t occur must be thinking this week knowing that they can’t keep legitimate journalists on payroll but have $200,000 to toss at a source interview.

That detail, thankfully, I spared my colleague.

If you haven’t seen the Sigma Delta Chi web presentation in which the noble history of our beloved organization is outlined and longtime member Helen Thomas makes a passion plea to keep our mission alive, well, you are missing out on a great story as well as an excellent appeal for donations.

The message showed up in my email basket with a rather innocuous email label – SDX message. When you are accustomed to getting about 70 SPJ emails a day as the president, everything starts to blend together. I didn’t know this was coming. I wasn’t expecting what would open on my computer screen when I clicked on it. But, there before my eyes unfolded a marvelous animated tale.

As I sat there looking at photos of our founding fathers and watched as 100 years of Sigma Delta Chi/Society of Professional Journalist unfolded before me, I got goose bumps. I felt an enormous sense of pride and a greater sense of responsibility as your leader. A lot has been entrusted to your current leadership. And, yes, when Thomas started telling her audience of how wonderful and valuable SPJ has been these last 100 years in the battles for press freedoms and in setting the highest ethics standards, I got a bit misty eyed.

We are 100 years old. There are not many journalism organizations that can make that claim. The principles we’ve coveted and have made us strong these past 100 years, will be the ones which continue to make us a force over the next century. It’s been my distinct privilege to be a member of SPJ the last 30 years. It’s my greatest honor to be your current president.

I hope you take a few minutes out of your busy day and watch this wonderful tale. I hope you get goose bumps as well and I hope you take Thomas’ advice to make a financial pledge to SDX so we can continue our missions. Thanks to Amy Posavac for coordinating this marvelous presentation.

We have so much to be proud of. We have so much to be thankful for and we have so much to protect and improve upon. Won’t you please do your part and keep our grand story alive?

If U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions proved anything this week it’s that he can’t be relied on to be a reliable source of information to the press and his public, anonymous or not.

Sessions, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has worked tirelessly the last 19 weeks with other Republicans to hold the Free Flow of Information Bill, S-448, hostage. Thursday, after weeks of stall tactics were exhausted and the barrage of amendments (nearly 30 total ) were defeated, the bill was moved to the full senate for consideration.

Not long after the vote, Sessions dug into his bag of political tricks and resorted to mischaracterizations, misinformation and fear mongering. His attempt is clear – unable to claim victory after nearly five months of debate, he wants to scare the people of Alabama into hating the press and stem the flow of information from the government to its people.

To characterize this bill as Sessions has done as a mechanism by which terrorists, rapists and child predators will be protected from investigators because of the press is patently wrong as is a dishonest attempt to create fear and gain support in Alabama when he couldn’t in senate chambers.

The Free Flow of Information bill provides journalists a shield from having to reveal their anonymous sources when stories of public interest are disseminated. This is not an absolute privilege and never has been. Many states provide protection for anonymous sources but there has never been such protection on a national level. 

Sessions isn’t truthful when he says that between 1994-2006 only 19 journalists were subpoenaed for their sources. A study by a Brigham Young University law professor shows that in 2006 alone, there were more than 3,000 nationwide. And the Department of Justice, which Sessions says rarely uses this legal reach, accounted for 335 in that single year.

When Sessions says that this is an imminent danger to national security and writes “the rejections of these and other amendments recklessly imperils the security of our citizens and our soldiers and leaves in place a bill that is deeply and fundamentally flawed,” he is mischaracterizing the bill’s language and its function.  National security measures have been carefully written into this bill. They’ve been there since the beginning and no journalist, compelled to come before a judge, can invoke the shield law when the information is militarily or criminally sensitive. A judge gets to apply a balancing test to determine what the public gets to know. Sessions would prefer that you get to know nothing.

When the senator contends that this doesn’t have the support of the intelligence and defense community, he is exaggerating to continue this fear mongering. Initial objects were voiced, amendments were added and this bill has the blessing of the Obama administration and letters of support exist from key prosecuting and intelligence leaders. He knows this, yet he clings to a secret covey of informants from the last administration, to tell him differently.

If information is the key to power, Sessions would have you believe that the real power in this country can never lie within its informed electorate, but must be tightly gripped by the government. Sessions has made it clear that he wants to safeguard as much government information as he can and news stories that unveil government corruption and misdeed have to remain secret.

As Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said to Sessions when the Alabama senator complained about the title of the bill, “I rather like the idea of a flow of information from the government to the public in a democracy.”

I admit that my first reaction to news that the Federal Trade Commission was holding workshops in Washington, D.C. the first part of December to look into the Internet’s impact on legacy media — more specifically, newspapers — had me a little miffed.

Like most independent-minded journalists the idea of the government intervening in our professional crisis seemed inappropriate at the least and an attempt at grabbing power at its worse.

The announcement was followed by a flurry of internal SPJ e-mails from members and other leaders raising the same questions and expressing the same concerns.

So, I determined that this intervention wouldn’t happen under my watch as SPJ president without putting up a fight. So I solicited comments from our committee chairs and chapters and I booked my trip to DC to defend SPJ and journalism’s interests. (Click here for all the public comments submitted to the FTC.)

But two weeks ago, while attending the Future of Journalism conference at Yale Law School, I realized I committed the cardinal sin of journalism – I decided the outcome of this story before I got all the facts.

It was during this conference that I had the opportunity to hear FTC Director Susan DeSanti explain her organization’s motives. Afterwards, I spoke to her and she promised that she would give special review to SPJ’s comments and invited us to take a more active role in future FTC workshops. Of course, I agreed we would.

Here is what she promised an auditorium full of journalists and scholars during her Yale speech:

First, this is a non-invasive action. The FTC is a non-regulatory body, meaning it can’t create laws affecting our industry. Its job is more fact-finding. The FTC’s mission is, in part, to analyze market failures and try to prevent them and protect people within those failing markets.

Second, the FTC believes there is enormous value in journalism as a component in sustaining a vibrant democracy. Therefore, the FTC has interest in such a vital market when papers are closing and people are losing their jobs.

“We have jurisdictional responsibility to research the U.S. economy and report on issues that may affect a market or economic overall,” DeSantis said, noting that her agency has been reading about all of the problems taking place in journalism and the ‘creative destruction’ of the industry and there is concern over the market equilibrium.

“I promise you that the FTC is platform neutral,” she emphasized. “This is not [a] way to save newspapers as it’s been characterized. This is about journalism and its future and its role in a market that is needed to sustain our democracy.”

She further said the FTC is coming to this with no intentions of proposing regulations for other agencies to consider. If anything the FTC just wants to hear from people, analyze data and get access to research.

Okay, so that said, where exactly does that leave SPJ? In all my years on the board we have touted SPJ as the largest and most broad-based organization in the nation. We are, therefore, platform neutral. We have fought to keep the definition of journalist an open one so that we don’t restrict ourselves in terms of our institutional thinking and our membership. In short, we fight for all journalists and represent everyone equally.

In a time when newspapers are tanking and Twitter is soaring it’s a hard sell, sometimes. As a legacy journalist who spent more than 20 years in newspapers it hurts when I travel to Ft. Worth and Denver and points in between and shake the hands of displaced journalists who tell me how they are struggling after their paper closed or forced buyouts and layoffs.

It’s difficult to see jobless reporters and editors struggling and then read about hyper-local Web sites that depend on citizen reporters who work for no money.

I can’t sit here at this moment and tell you with certainty where our profession is headed and what direction we need to advocate. But, I’m getting closer to understanding it all. Two days at Yale and two days in DC will help me better understand the landscape. And, as I promised the night I took office, SPJ will not be without a voice and we will help shape our destiny.

I’m looking forward to the FTC hearings as another step in the education process. Soon, though, we will be developing our own views on this subject and submitting our own report. In the meantime, thanks to everyone who contributed to this coming event and keeps speaking out and defending journalism. Regardless of the future, one thing will never change – a democracy fails without a viable free press.

Many of you are aware that SPJ has been working tirelessly for years to promote a federal shield law that will protect journalists and their sources from improper interference by federal prosecutors.

Personally, I’ve been to Capitol Hill the last two years making SPJ’s position on this important legislation known to a variety of senators and Congressional representatives. But, many well-intentioned officers of the Society preceded me. This has been a long and arduous process. First, let me say thank you to all who have toiled for this legislation over the years.

Next week the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on Senate Bill 448, the Free Flow of Information Act, a bill that is coming very close to becoming law.  This is the closest we’ve been to having a shield bill make it to the president’s desk. With support now from the White House and the majority leadership of this Congress we have high hopes this will be the year we can report to our membership that we are protected against federal prosecution when it comes to revealing confidential sources.

This can be a reality but SPJ and the media coalition need your help.  The time now is crucial. We are on the one-yard line and this is the winning score.

 In the days leading up to the Nov. 19 Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote, we want members of SPJ to take a few minutes and call or email members of the committee, or your senators or representatives and express your wish to have SB 448 passed.  Call them and email them.

One thing I’ve learned from my trips to the Hill is you might not get to talk to a lawmaker but they do get status reports every day from staff telling them who called and for what bill. They will pay attention when they get hundreds of calls and emails for SB 448.

That’s why we need as many members as possible to make those calls and send those emails supporting this legislation. SPJ needs your voice. With more than 8,000 members to be heard, we can make a difference. We can make a unified sound that will resonate with all members and we can nudge this bill from the committee, one step closer to law.

Please call or send an email.  Stand behind the shield law and ask our lawmakers to do the same.

It didn’t take me all of two and a half hours sitting at Walter Cronkite’s memorial service Wednesday to learn that my career is somewhat muted  by the fact I never met the journalistic icon.

I, like so many of my generation, were drawn to journalism by the likes of Cronkite, John Chancellor, David Brinkley and Chet Huntley.  When I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be an astronaut and walk the moon like Cmdr. Buzz Aldrin, who, by the way, was on hand to eulogize Mr. Cronkite, I wanted to be a journalist.

The service may be one of the great moments of my 30 years as a newsman.  When I wasn’t laughing at stories like the time Mr. Cronkite refused to have his picture taken with the Big Three’s anchors — Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw — because that meant leaving his seat at the bar and walking away from his drink, I was shedding a tear for our loss. The service was a euphoric blend of happy memories and poignant testimonies to “the Most Trusted Man in America.”

Make no mistake about it, those who knew Walter Cronkite, loved him. They respected him and they followed his example of pure, driven journalism that put a premium on accuracy, fairness and brevity.

“Just give the people the news. Be accurate and fair. That’s what they want,” he must have said enough times to chant it in his sleep.

That’s  an amazing statement that still has a place within today’s context of high-speed, technologically driven delivery systems.

In President Barack Obama’s tribute to the CBS News anchor, he told the crowd about the time Mr. Cronkite, as a young reporter, lost his job because he dared pick up the phone to verify a fire at a local department store instead of rushing on the air to tell it. Obama suggested, rightfully so I believe, that even with the supernova brightness of technology and the light speed by which information is disseminated, that Mr. Cronkite would still do the journalistic right thing and take the time to verify the information, get it right and then report it.

Listening to the likes to Bob Schieffer, Andy Rooney, Katie Couric, Nick Clooney, Sir Howard Stringer and Brokaw tell their stories about Mr. Cronkite, I was comforted by the notion that the way I was taught to be a journalist, and how I now teach my students, is straight from the Cronkite book – people need to know what happened. Above all else, accuracy and fairness must exist. Journalism is a noble calling and you must honor it with these commitments, lest you lose the trust of the public and undermine your credibility.

As Obama said, Mr. Cronkite was the “most trusted man in American” not because it was a marketing tool or a gimmick to get viewers to tune into CBS News.  It was a title bestowed upon him by the people who matter the most – the American public.

His work is legendary and his commitment to journalistic excellence is second to none, so my respect for him didn’t need to grow as a result of this service. But, what did happen is I renewed my spirit and reaffirmed my respect for what it is I do – journalism. I have the great fortune of sharing this profession with Mr. Cronkite.

He set the bar for which we all reach and in the final analysis, that may be his greatest gift to journalism — that we aspire to be as honorable and trusted as Mr. Cronkite.

I may never have met him, but that seems less important to me today because of what he meant to American journalism and his beloved public.

I think you can trust me on this.

As those of you who attended the convention last week will recall, I talked about a plan to turn our membership numbers around. While adding 1,000 people to our roll seems daunting in these most difficult of times, it will not be if many of us make an effort to reach out to journalists in this coming year and convince them to join our organization. I referred to it as my 10 percent plan. If one in every 10 members did this, we’d be back to numbers of almost two years ago. Maybe we need to modify it to a 15 percent plan. However we promote it, the message is the same — SPJ has to stop the membership slide now.

Just days ago a new report shows we fell below 8,000 members for the first time in many, many years. We are wanting our numbers to be closer to 9,000. Heck, I can remember two years ago thinking we could easily push it to 10,000. Not such an easy task as times change. But the need for our organization hasn’t. More than ever, SPJ has to prove it has relevance to displaced journalists, working journalists and college journalists. As a member you know it does. That’s why it’s vital for you to make efforts to bolster our membership.

It’s not just about image, it’s also about survival. SPJ draws more than a third of its operating budget from dues and as we fall below 8,000 members we run risks of budget deficits and program cutbacks. I don’t want to see that happen and neither do you. That’s why I wrote the letter below that was sent out to all chapter leaders this week making my pitch to them to make membership a priority.

I think you will agree that there is no better time than the present to start this turnaround.

—

Sept. 4, 2009

Dear Chapter Leaders:

As many of you are aware by now, one of my primary missions for the next year is to elevate our membership numbers by more than 1,000 journalists. This is an ambitious undertaking in tough economic times for the news industry and its employees.

I know this sounds wildly ambitious, but it isn’t that difficult of a task. Think of the number of journalists you come in contact with each day, week, and month — on the job or in social settings. These are prime opportunities to sell SPJ. You know and understand the value of your SPJ membership. Now you need to use your best skills of persuasion and make others feel that same way. Don’t let a moment pass you this year that you can’t extol the virtues of belonging to the largest, oldest and most prestigious journalism organization in our country.

This is why I believe we can make this happen. Using a very conservative approach to membership recruiting, I strongly believe it is attainable with a simple 10 percent plan. That is, if only 10 percent of the membership reached out to one journalist in the next year and brought them into the fold, we’d be well on our way to reaching the level this organization aspires.

We are now entering a very crucial time in our membership year. Students are arriving back on campus and membership numbers tend to dip for us at the end of the calendar year. As you return from convention energized with new-found knowledge you obtained from professional development and you have that SPJ spring in your step, don’t hesitate sharing it with others.

Student and professional chapter leaders can plan events that attract new faces. What we know is people join SPJ for our virtues but stay for local events. So, it’s vital that chapter leaders work diligently in this area to assure that SPJ has relevance for these journalists.

The staff at headquarters stands ready to assist you. Our new membership chair Holly Fisher and her committee members are ready to help you attract new members, retain old ones and devise new strategies that will keep SPJ vibrant and powerful in the years to come.

Don’t hesitate to ask for assistance or share your successes with others. Together, starting today, we will turn the corner and grow in numbers and strength.

Sincerely,

Kevin Z. Smith
President