10/31/06

Panel: Journalists must fight for access


NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- In the five years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, there has been an enormous shift toward government secrecy, and the news media need to begin pushing back more forcefully, a journalism advocate said.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said journalists must to do a better job of explaining to the public and decision makers the significance of increased limits on information.

If they don't, the future could hold more subpoenas for reporters, with the public left in the dark about activities going on around them, she said Oct. 26. Since Sept. 11, the number of documents listed as classified has risen sharply, she said.

"It's a very ugly situation," Dalglish said.

Dalglish was one of four participants in a discussion on freedom of information held during a meeting of the Associated Press Managing Editors.

A staff writer for New Orleans' Times-Picayune newspaper, James Varney, told the audience that he has had a difficult time trying to get information about contracts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers as he covers the city's rebuilding process.

"My experience has been nothing but nightmarish," he said.

Examples of government secrecy are also appearing on the state and local level, said Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at the Missouri School of Journalism. People have had difficulty obtaining information about births, victims of hunting accidents and details about meetings involving local elected leaders, he said.

Journalists need to use anecdotal evidence to show readers that access to information is much better than the alternative, he said.

"We're just getting run over on that issue," he said.

The panel discussion comes after several high-profile clashes involving reporters in recent months. Last year, former New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to testify in the investigation into who leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame's name. More recently, federal authorities have tried to compel two San Francisco Chronicle reporters to testify about who gave them secret grand jury testimony from Barry Bonds and other elite athletes.

Strides were being made in Congress toward passage of a federal shield law to protect reporters, Dalglish said. But congressional support diminished after recent stories on secret prisons and the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program, she said.

At least one managing editor in the audience, David Bailey of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, said highly publicized incidents involving reporters led to a policy at his paper that reporters destroy their notes.

The Associated Press is the world's oldest and largest newsgathering organization, providing content to more than 15,000 news outlets with a daily reach of 1 billion people around the world. APME is an organization of editors and managing editors of the more than 1,500 U.S. and Canadian newspapers served by the AP.