Alert 4/8/04
Alert, 4-8-04
Later this afternoon, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press will be sending a letter of protest to the Justice Department and the Supreme Court on the incident yesterday in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where a federal marshal erased tape recordings made by two reporters covering a speech by Justice Anton Scalia.
I’ve asked Lucy Dalglish to send a copy of the letter and the press release they’ll issue to each of you when they are completed. Anything you can do to assist in seeing that the incident and the protest get the widest possible exposure, and comment, will be of tremendous help.
The marshal’s actions violated law and written policy. The justice’s continuing refusal to allow his speeches to be filmed by television crews and sometimes to bar tape recordings is simply unreasonable, and an act of incredible arrogance. The media acquiescence of his continuing requests is troubling; it can only have exacerbated the situation, leading up to yesterday’s incident.
We’ll see what reaction the protest gets – and if some or all of you choose to endorse it and send along follow-up protests, and if there is widespread editorial condemnation of his actions and his “don’t record me” posture, there is a better chance of some response. But this is a judge who doesn’t recuse when there is a clear personal conflit.
And more importantly, we should talk about how journalists individually and collectively should respond.
Does the reporting need to be more aggressive? Scalia was not asked to comment, either on the actions of the marshal or on the rationale for his request.
Is it time for a form of mild media disobedience? Should reporters be more proactive in their coverage, making a point to cover his speeches with cameras and recorders clearly on display -- particularly when he is in a public place and there can be no issue about their right to be there -- and refuse to turn leave or turn off the recording devices? Is there some other kind of collective action, beyond written protest, we might take?
Is it time for reporters, and their news organizations, to stand their ground? My journalism career was in Florida. Two of the seminal events in open government came when 1) reporters refused to leave the gallery when the state Senate voted to go into executive session on redistricting and sergeants-at-arms were sent to escort them out, and 2) a reporter refused to leave a city council briefing and was arrested. The first incident was an impetus for the state’s Government in the Sunshine law. The second resulted in a Florida Supreme Court decision that gave that law its teeth.
Your thoughts on the possible response, and how we might make it happen.
Pete Weitzel
