How It Became Normal For Public Officials To Attack Journalists

The Los Angeles Times reporter Alene Tchekmedyian had a big scoop: internal documents showed officials in the county sheriff’s office trying to cover up an incident in which a deputy knelt on a detainee’s head. But after her latest article on the flourishing scandal, Sheriff Alex Villanueva called a press conference to vehemently deny the allegations – and target Tchekmedyian. Standing in front of a photo of the reporter, a political opponent and the county inspector general, Villanueva announced that the three were part of a criminal investigation into a leak. “What did they know and when did they know?” read the caption above the photo screen, which looked like a wanted poster. Public officials are known to grumble about the perceived injustice in covering the news. But Villanueva’s attempt to publicly accuse a journalist of doing her job – an attempt to intimidate her, some have argued – reflects a brazen trend of officials using government power to punish or expel journalists for articles they do not like. “It’s another form of degrading trust in our institutions,” said Tom Rosenstiel, a professor of journalism at the University of Maryland and former executive director of the American Press Institute. “These are steps towards totalitarianism.” Recent incidents include: – When a reporter from St. The Louis Post-Dispatch wrote an article revealing a security flaw on a state education website, Missouri Governor Mike Parson (R) denounced him as a “hacker” and asked police to investigate it as a crime. Months later, the prosecutor announced that he would not prosecute. – In Iowa last year, Polk County Attorney John Sarcone (D) prosecuted a Des Moines Register reporter who was arrested for covering racial justice protests in 2020, accusing her of failing to break up and intervening in official proceedings. A court has finally acquitted Andrea Sahouri of misdemeanor charges following a trial that has confused supporters of press freedom. A North Carolina judge barred journalists from his courtroom for several weeks last year without explanation. When a local newspaper publisher protested, the judge handcuffed him and threw him out, threatening to humiliate him. The case was particularly shocking for supporters of the First Amendment, as the Supreme Court has generally upheld the right of journalists to have access to criminal proceedings. A Republican lawmaker in Tennessee introduced a resolution in January to the Associated Press to investigate patterns of discrimination and racism in the military. While the story was widely praised, MP Bud Hulsey’s resolution called it “the lowest form of yellow journalism” and said the AP “must be held accountable by the American public and its elected officials”. Hulsey finally withdrew the resolution. – A Florida county committee last year said goodbye to an outgoing local columnist who had written critical articles for the Republican panel, unanimously passing a sarcastic statement resolution mocking her work and immigrant background. One of the commissioners told The Post, “If he can catch it, he should be able to get it.” Observers see a number of possible reasons because officials tend to use their powers to undermine journalists. Free all-media social media, full of attacks on the press, may have contributed to a climate of greater impunity, said Kirstin McCudden, vice president for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for free speech. He believes that the ruthless demonization of journalists by former President Donald Trump as an “enemy of the people” and as a provider of “fake news” also contributed. With many Americans saying they do not trust the press, some public officials “think there is a political advantage” in attacking journalists directly, Rosenstiel said. More than 100 journalists in the United States have been arrested or detained while reporting in 2020. Many have been arrested in police scandals covering demonstrations sparked by the assassination of George Floyd by police, and most have seen their accusations they just had the job – but not all. Incidents like these have pushed the nonprofit Reporters Without Borders to rank the United States 44th in the global press freedom survey – behind countries such as Botswana, Cyprus and Uruguay. Villanueva – a Democrat who recently alienated himself from the local party that appeared at some GOP events during his re-election campaign this year – has a long-standing feud with the Times, Southern California’s largest newspaper. An ad for his campaign shows his letter to the newspaper’s editorial board, which refuses to participate in its interviews, the Los Angeles magazine reported. In capital letters at the top of the ad: “# $ @!% YOUR SIGNATURE” At a news conference Tuesday, Villaneuva suggested that the charges against him were fabricated by a group of political opponents – and hinted that the Times was part of it. He returned to address Chekmedian, who was there to cover the press conference. “Maybe you should start clarifying what exactly you did with it and from whom you got it and when you got it,” he told reporters. “This is a question for you.” Hours later, after Villaneuva’s outburst went viral on social media, he tried to back off, calling the response to his comments an “incredible misinformation frenzy.” On Twitter, he wrote: “We have no interest in prosecuting or prosecuting any journalist.” Kevin Merida, the Times’ executive editor, called the Villaneuva press conference an “outrageous” attack on the journalist’s First Amendment rights. “His attempt to criminalize news reporting runs counter to established constitutional law,” Merida said in a statement. The newspaper’s lawyers warned Villaneuva that the threat to prosecute the Tchekmedyian “is an abuse of your official position that threatens to bring you and the county to justice”, according to a copy of their letter published by the Times. Villanueva’s actions are more influential than Tchekmedyian, said Katie Townsend, legal director of the Journalists’ Committee on Freedom of the Press. “It sends an intimidating message to all journalists that if they report true but disturbing information about the department, they will also be targeted,” he said. “That is why the use of such tactics is so destructive. “Not only is it retaliation, but it also threatens to freeze other important news in the public interest.” Supporters of press freedom were similarly concerned last fall when Parson, the governor of Missouri, launched his attack on the St. Louis newspaper. Post-Dispatch’s Josh Renaud reported a security vulnerability he discovered on the Missouri State Teachers’ Web site, where the Social Security numbers of some 100,000 school employees could be seen by anyone looking at the site’s source code. Parson, however, insisted that Reno was “Acting against the state service to jeopardize the personal data of teachers in an attempt to embarrass the state and sell headlines for their news agency.” However, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post, Renaud had notified officials of the security vulnerability before publishing his article, so that they would have the opportunity to correct it. Some government officials had even suggested that a statement be issued thanking “a member of the media who brought it to the attention of the state.” At Parson’s behest, the State Highway Patrol investigated the matter for months. In the end, a local prosecutor refused to prosecute. “This decision is a relief. “But it does not repair the damage done to me and my family,” Renaud wrote in a statement. “This was a clear political persecution of a journalist.” Isadora Rangel, the columnist who stood out for ridicule from the Brevard (Florida) County Commission when she left her job last year, was just as angry. “They feel they have a right to use this time spent on county issues for personal matters,” he told The Post at the time. “Is this really the issue for the government? Is it the job of an elected official to use his official position to make personal judgments and to attack people? Missouri governor accuses reporter of warning state of cybersecurity flaw for criminal ‘hacking’ Iowa journalist acquitted in trial that shocked press freedom advocates A North Carolina judge blocks journalists from his courtroom. One objected – and he was handcuffed. Florida’s local officials passed a resolution mocking the work of a newspaper columnist and immigration background