Now, when you look at that headline, at first it seems like good thing. But it isn’t. Setting a dangerous precedent, a U.S. District Judge in Maryland yesterday dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Baltimore Sun against Maryland’s Republican governor, Robert Ehrlich Jr. The paper had hoped that the court would throw out the governor’s edict stopping state PR operatives from ever talking to two of its reporters. In the suit, the Sun argued that the ban violated the First Amendment rights of its journalists by denying them the opportunities afforded other news outlets.
The saga began on November 18 of last year, when the governor’s press office sent out a memo banning all state public information officers from speaking to the Sun‘s David Nitkin and columnist Michael Olesker. Ehrlich accused the reporters of engaging in “noncontextual innuendo,” pointing to a front-page map that accompanied a story filed by Nitkin that overstated the amount of state parkland that was being considered for sale, and to an Olesker column describing the facial expression of an Ehrlich aide at a hearing.
The map was inaccurate, and the Sun ran a correction, while Olesker acknowledged that he hadn’t attended the hearing featured in his story, and suggested that his description was meant metaphorically.
Apart from the corrections that the paper and the reporters issued back in November, the Sun stood behind the basic reporting contained in its stories, noting that, “While the administration has complained that the articles have been ‘unbalanced’, nothing in them has been found to be inaccurate.” The ban, the Sun wrote in an editorial, “is designed to put the paper on the defensive and to plant seeds of doubt among readers about the veracity of the Sun‘s reporting.”
As examples of sloppy journalism, both of the Sun‘s transgressions certainly fit the bill — but are they cause to cut off the Sun‘s access to state information officers?
The presiding judge apparently thought so, noting in his decision that the Sun “wrongly asserted a greater right to access to government officials than private citizens have.” He added: “The right to publish news is expansive. However, the right does not carry with it the unrestrained right to gather information.” (Italics added.)
Given that we already have all too many news outlets that “publish news” without having gathered information, it seems distinctly odd that either the governor or the judge would want to create one more.
In response to the judge’s ruling, Sun editor Tim Franklin declared, “Essentially, what the court is saying is that it’s OK for a politician to create an enemies list. It’s not only unconstitutional, it’s undemocratic.” Franklin also said that the paper plans to file an appeal with the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and is seeking an expedited review of the appeal.
Until then, the governor’s ban remains in place. If the ruling is upheld, we suggest the governor rename all those public information officers on the state payroll.
“State no-information officers”?
Has a nice ring to it, and gets right to the heart of the matter.
–Paul McLeary
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.