First Amendment and press advocacy groups slam move by Alameda County DA
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One of the bedrock principles of America is freedom of speech, to be able to say or write what a person wants to without fear of government reprisal. It’s the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It’s at least tangentially related to the U.S. Freedom of Information Act or, in the Golden State, the Brown Act and the California Public Records Act.
Still, as a Berkeley journalist learned on Nov. 29, government doesn't always honor the spirit of this freedom.
Emilie Raguso, who runs a crime website, Berkeley Scanner and was the 2017 journalist of the year for the Society of Professional Journalists’ NorCal Chapter, wrote that she’d been denied access to a press conference held by Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price.
In a piece that’s worth a read for anyone who cares about press freedom, Raguso wrote that in her 20 years in the journalism industry, she had never experienced anything like this. “If DA Price doesn’t choose to answer my questions or grant me a sit-down interview (which I have repeatedly requested), that’s entirely her choice,” Raguso wrote. “But the law is different when it comes to broader press conferences.”
Representatives for the DA have since claimed that Raguso wasn’t invited to the press conference and that she lacked proper credentials. No matter, said the First Amendment Coalition, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which together wrote in a joint letter to the DA’s office on Nov. 30, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“The First Amendment prohibits the government from arbitrarily excluding specific reporters from access to press conferences or other facilities or materials generally open to the media,” the letter noted. “Your office’s actions exert a chilling effect on the journalism community.”
As of Dec. 1, there’d been no word from Raguso on her website about if her access to press conferences had been restored.
Read “Pamela Price barred me from her press conference: First-person” on BerkeleyScanner.com.
