SPJ national update II: Presumably you wouldn't consider just answering the question? At the military hearings probing the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha in November 2005, a Marine officer testified about his view of the initial questions about the incident, and possible coverup, raised by the Time magazine reporter who broke the case. Tim McGirk's questions clearly provoked more rage than a determination to investigate the evidence offered by eyewitnesses. First Lt. Adam Mathes, then the executive officer of Company K, said the other officers had dismissed the reporter's queries, feeling they were "sensational" and politically inspired; McGirk clearly had an "antiwar agenda," he alleged. Details on that view of McGirk surfaced last month when the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times published excerpts from a five-page memo produced by Mathes and three other officers in January 2006 in response to McGirk's questions. Here's one of those questions: How many Marines were killed and wounded in the IED attack that morning? The memo response: "If it bleeds, it leads. This question is McGirk's attempt to get good bloody gouge on the situation. He will most likely use the information he gains from this answer as an attention gainer." Question: Were there any officers? Memo: "By asking if there was an officer on scene the reporter may be trying to identify a point of blame for lack of judgment. If there was an officer involved, then he may be able to have his My Lai massacre pinned on that officer's shoulders." Stonewalling by the military contributed to the Haditha story remaining largely unexplored by the press for several weeks after the sketchy revelations by McGirk in Time. Extensive coverage only ensued after Rep. John Murtha raised the issue in interviews in May 2006. The Marine Corps eventually charged three enlisted men with murder and four officers with dereliction of duty for failing to determine how and why the Iraqis were killed. More here.
SPJ national update III: Private security, public concern; and PBS jumps the network gun with "Exposé" on internet. Exactly how many Americans are serving in Iraq and what they are doing there might not seem like complicated questions. But the stated 150,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq do not include some 30,000 employees of U.S. and European-based private security companies who work in some of Iraq's most dangerous areas. These PSC employees are not like other contractors in Iraq. Many of them carry weapons and are hired to protect important people, facilities and convoys. They have been involved in firefights, and scores of them have died. So what does the American public know about them? And how well are the American news media covering the story? More here. ... Many networks have streamed first episodes of series online before their broadcast or cable premieres to generate buzz, but putting an entire series online has been largely limited to reruns. Then along comes a fresh 20-week run of "Exposé: America's Investigative Reports" on PBS -- and also on the internet, where viewers will be able to watch each new episode beforehand in streaming video. The experiment gives the series a way to get around a chronic problem in public broadcasting: Unlike a commercial network, PBS has its local affiliates run programs on different days and at different times, making it difficult to promote viewing beyond saying, "Check local listings." More here.
SPJ national update IV: Journalists dole out cash to politicians (quietly); and upbraided by prime minister, British press bites back. MSNBC.com has identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes, while 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties. More here and here and here. ... Departing British Prime Minister Tony Blair's likening the British media to a "feral beast" evoked angry reactions from the accused. Most British commentators said that Blair's attack, which came during one of his last speeches before leaving office, was pure hypocrisy. For a man whose "administration will always be synonymous with spin, to question the system he has so often exploited seems a bit rich," wrote The Economist. The Daily Telegraph listed 10 examples of what it called media spin by Blair's Labor Party, and The Independent, which Blair singled out as mixing "opinion and fact," had editor Simon Kelner ask on the front page, "Would you be saying this, Mr. Blair, if we supported your war in Iraq?" More here.
SPJ national update V: White House stays the course against shield law; and secret surveillance evidence unsealed in AT&T spying case. The Bush administration still opposes a bill to shield reporters from federal efforts to force them to reveal their sources. The bill's sponsors added exceptions for imminent threats to national security and bodily harm, among others, to make it more palatable to the administration. The legislation, said Mike Pence, R-Ind., "is not about protecting reporters. It is about protecting the public's right to know." The measure, HR 2102, would write into federal law a policy already enacted by 32 states and the District of Columbia. More here and here. ... More documents detailing secret government surveillance of AT&T's internet traffic have been released as part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class-action lawsuit against the telecom giant. Some of the unsealed information was previously made public in redacted form. The new documents describe a secret, secure room in AT&T's facilities that gave the National Security Agency direct access to customers' e-mails and other internet communications. More here.
SPJ national update VI: Judge rejects Libby lawyers' "bloggers can be mean" defense; and now's the time to hit up Big Bird for a raise. Before federal Judge Reggie Walton sentenced Bush administration insider I. Lewis Libby Jr. to 30 months in prison, he rejected a plea that support letters from the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz not be released because they might be published on the internet and their authors "discussed, even mocked, by bloggers." More here. ... A House bill approved June 7 gives the Corporation for Public Broadcasting an advance appropriation of $420 million in fiscal year 2010, a 5 percent increase over 2009. Under Republican congressional and administration leadership, funding for various projects had been threatened. Public broadcasters argue that forward funding helps insulate the service from politics. More here.
SPJ national update VII: Appeals court throws out FCC indecency finding. In a major victory for TV networks, an appeals court on June 4 overruled federal regulators who decided that expletives uttered on broadcast television violated decency standards. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York called "arbitrary and capricious" the FCC's policy sanctioning what the court called "fleeting expletives." The FCC had ruled in March 2006 that News Corp.'s Fox television network had violated decency regulations when singer Cher and actress Nicole Richie blurted profanities during the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards shows. More here.
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Another Legislative Session, Another Shield Law Bust
by Katie Martinez
None of what transpired in the 80th Legislature is good news for Texas journalists. That was the message Paul Watler and SPJ board member Tom Williams, both directors of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, had for SPJ members and guests at the June meeting.
Watler, an attorney with Jackson Walker L.L.P., chronicled the death of a dream when he described how SB 966, the Texas Free Flow of Information Act, was undermined in the final hour on the House floor.
The bill, often called a shield law, would have offered limited protection to journalists against compelled court testimony or the disclosure of confidential informants. District attorneys across the state opposed the bill, arguing that losing access to journalists' files could hinder prosecutions.
"Texas is in the distinct minority of states without any protection for journalist confidentiality," Watler said. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia all have some form of a shield law, while Texas journalists still cannot offer any protection to whistleblowers and confidential sources.
Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, the bill's sponsor, fought to get it to the floor, only to see it be derailed on what he called "the most trivial of technicalities." When a single sentence left out of a paraphrased copy of the bill was discovered, Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, raised a point of order. The point of order was upheld, ending the fight until the next legislative session in 2009.
"To move this bill so far and have it snatched away on something that is completely non-substantive is neither good government nor good for the people of Texas," Ellis said in a press release. "The public's right to know has been compromised by this action."
Williams, a libel specialist with Haynes and Boone LLP, discussed what did pass, including HB 991, which restricts access to information about concealed handgun license holders in Texas. The bill was supported by the NRA and signed into law within weeks by Gov. Rick Perry, who declared the law "effective immediately."
Another passed bill restricts access to affidavits pertaining to criminal warrants for up to 60 days. This information has always been public record once the warrant had been served. Now prosecutors may request that the records be sealed to protect witnesses, confidential informants or wiretaps that are still in place. continued ...
