CalAware Today

California's Most Courageous Newspaperman

FREE PRESS -- Tim Crews, editor and publisher of a small community newspaper in Glenn County and a member of the board of directors of Californians Aware, was named the California Press Association's Newspaper Executive of the Year at an awards dinner at the Marines Memorial in San Francisco this past Friday.  Recipients are publishers, editors-in-chief or equivalents who have involved themselves in the directions of the editorial and news side of their newspapers by showing exceptional editorial achievement. In Crews' case, the award was for his journalism in creating and maintaining "California's most courageous newspaper."

No Such Thing As a (Government) Free Press

FREE PRESS -- "The myth is that the commercial press in this country stands wholly independent of governmental sustenance," say media scholars Geoffrey Cowan and David Westphal, writing in the Online Journalism Review. "Here's the jolt: There's never been a time in U.S. history when government dollars weren't propping up the news business. This year, federal, state and local governments will spend well over $1 billion to support commercial news publishers through tax breaks, postal subsidies and the printing of public notices. And the amount used to be much higher."

Berkeley Paper Suffers Boycott for Views on Israel

FREE PRESS -- A free weekly newspaper (with a daily website) reporting city news, comment and controversies to the residents of Berkeley is under serious attack and could be shut down for loss of advertising because of charges that its editorial content, including but not limited to published letters, is anti-Israel, anti-semitic or both, reports Jesse McKinley in the New York Times.

Posterior Restraint: A Courthouse Comp for VIPs?

FREE PRESS -- If the courtroom bailiffs in Las Vegas are going to lock reporters in after a hearing so they can't chase a departing VIP party for interviews, let's not treat this as a constitutional crisis, writes Brendan Buhler in the Las Vegas Sun. Let's offer it as another benefit of the secrecy hospitality of the town that reassures visitors, "What happens here stays here."

"It Is the Soldier" Salute Ignores Half Our History

FREE SPEECH/FREE PRESS -- Veterans Day marks a surge in the online circulation of a certain versified tribute to the military as the exclusive source of our freedoms under the Bill of Rights.  It's not clear why those who claim to celebrate veterans feel it necessary to deny the role of civilian contributors to our civil liberties.  And it's not even true to history.

AG Taping Flap: What Does "on the Record" Mean?

FREE PRESS -- Two new items have emerged in the last 24 hours concerning the secret recording of journalists' interview calls by a former press spokesman for Attorney General Jerry Brown: the actual recorded call transcripts and a formal investigative finding by a top official in the criminal division of Brown's office concluding that, since press interviews are "on the record," no law prohibits the government from recording them unannounced.

No A.G. Secret Taping Law Violation? Not So Fast

FREE PRESS -- Was the practice of Attorney General Jerry Brown's former press spokesman quietly to tape record his phone discussions with inquiring reporters a violation of California law?  No, say the A.G.'s office and the First Amendment Coalition, in a rush to exoneration that ignores a central court decision.

AG Taping Should Cool Probe of ACORN Watchdogs

FREE PRESS -- Today's disclosure that a press spokesman for Attorney General Jerry Brown routinely and secretly recorded phone discussions with journalists should disable Brown's Justice Department from prosecuting self-appointed investigators who secretly videotaped their bogus consultation with a San Bernardino ACORN office staffer about getting help setting up a prostitution enterprise.

Former Court PIO: O.J. Trial Cost Camera Access

OPEN COURTS/FREE PRESS -- "Fourteen years ago today—shock and awe. After 16 tawdry months of the Simpson case wallpapering the public square, a Los Angeles criminal court jury found O.J. Simpson not guilty of the hideous murders of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ron Goldman," recalls Patt Morrison in the Los Angeles Times, introducing her interview with the former court public information officer who's written a book about her experiences with the media in that episode.

San Bernardino ACORN Agent: Too Clever by Half?

FREE PRESS -- If the San Bernardino ACORN employee secretly video-recorded by a purported pimp and prostitute she was interviewing sues for violation of her privacy rights, the state Supreme Court's interpretation of the relevant California statute could give her a strong case. Or might  have—had she not already admitted she knew the interview was a set-up.

The Echoes Die for the Student-run Canyon Call

FREE PRESS -- After 40 years, a student newspaper as old as the Santa Clarita-area community college it covered has been shut down—and with it, five journalism classes, reports Molly Lovelady for the Lumberjack at Humboldt State. Administrators who terminated the Canyon Call blame declining j-class enrollment, declining student interest in newspapers as information sources, and declining job opportunities for newspaper-trained graduates.

Federal Shield Bill Given Priority for Attention

FREE PRESS -- A long-debated federal "shield" law to protect journalists who refuse to reveal their confidential sources got nudged a little closer to passage yesterday, reports Jennifer Harper for the Washington Times.

Another Tweak to the Feckless Paparazzi Law

FREE PRESS -- Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) has again amended her anti-paparazzi bill and appears ready to move it to the governor during the last week of the 2009 legislative session, which ends September 11, reports the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA), which opposes the bill. AB 524 rewrites the decade-old celebrity-hounding law to make it easier for victims of privacy-intrusive images—or prosecutors—to sue the publishers as well as the photographers.

Press Less Active in Fighting Closed Courtrooms

FREE PRESS -- "You don’t see newspapers fighting to open court proceedings the way they used to, and people are starting to notice," reports Adam Liptak in the New York Times.  And the main factor to blame—the dramatic slump in daily newspaper advertising income—is at least as bad in California as anywhere else. But one paper says it's still fighting the good fight.

Twitter Hack Case Could Test Shield for Blogs

FREE PRESS -- Exploiting a computer network's imperfect security, a hacker unlawfully gains access to private company messages and other documents and copies and forwards them to an Internet information site, where some are posted.  The company seeks to find out who the hacker was.  If the Internet site is found to be a journalistic publisher under California law, it may be able to ignore the company's subpoena, which would be unenforceable, notes attorney Jeffrey D. Neuburger in MediaShift.

Judge: Website Has Access Rights as News Medium

FREE PRESS -- A federal judge in New York  has ruled that the government is not entitled to withhold information from Internet news sites related to sealed indictments.  "Her ruling is significant for all online media outlets whether it be the Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, Perez Hilton or TMZ.com," comments Jagajeet Chiba for Gambling911.com.

State Prison Sends Inmate Journalist to the Hole

FREE PRESS -- Mike Rhodes reports in Indybay.org that "Boston Woodard, a prisoner/journalist who is a frequent contributor to Indybay, has been put in solitary confinement in retaliation for an article he wrote about conditions at Solano State Prison."

No Relief So Far from Tabloid Cellulite Scrutiny

FREE PRESS -- Photos or video shot through standard lenses of scenes visible in or from public locations are still not going to be ruled actionable as an invasion of privacy, even in this era of Google Street Views, writes attorney Jonathan Bick in the New Jersey Law Journal.

Censored Student Paper Gets Journalism Award

FREE PRESS -- Fallbrook High School’s Tomahawk student newspaper, which was twice censored and had its journalism class eliminated, received the Tom Adler High School Journalism Award during the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) San Diego Chapter awards banquet June 25, reports the Fallbrook-Bonsall Village News.

Pinched (Literally), Rousted for Committing Video

FREE PRESS -- Here's how an aggrieved videographer, Luke Thomas, describes his run-in with badged authority while covering a meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Chill Follows Public Records Request 'Gone Wrong'

FREE PRESS -- "There are signs on the seventh floor of San Diego's City Hall that say 'authorized employees only' that weren’t there two weeks ago," reports Eric Wolff for San Diego CityBeat. "And, for the last week, city staff have been considering installing gates to keep uninvited members of the public out of parts of City Hall where no public services are rendered.

"The staff on the seventh floor, mostly bookkeepers, accountants and members of the comptroller’s staff, are jumpy—nervous, it seems, at the sight of strangers.

"What has them on edge?"

It was a request for public documents gone wrong, a confrontation between city staff and Union-Tribune reporters Brooke Williams and Danielle Cervantes last month. The reporters wanted to review public records, as they had in the past. City staff wanted to know why a couple of strangers were wandering around their offices. Arguing ensued, and the reporters were asked to leave the building empty-handed.

The events come to light during a tense time in San Diego’s public-records history. Recently, the Union-Tribune criticized city staff for asking the paper to cover costs related to a series of database inquiries. And a dispute over e-mails requested by voiceofsandiego.org resulted in the online news site threatening to sue the city. That situation is still being resolved by the City Attorney’s office.

CityBeat’s account of events comes from an interview with Williams and an ad-hoc “incident report” put together by the city in which four city staffers described what they witnessed. Cervantes told CityBeat that, for the most part, Williams spoke for her as well. A Union-Tribune blog reported a version of the story, but the paper didn’t know about the existence of the report until CityBeat called Williams and Cervantes for comment.

On June 17, Williams and Cervantes, both reporters on the U-T’s “Watch Dog” investigative team, decided to go to City Hall in person to request and review public records. Williams told CityBeat that she’d left several phone messages asking for the records and finally got fed up. She said she’s requested documents in person in the past with no problems.

According to the city’s report, Veronica Murillo, executive secretary to the comptroller, noticed the pair of reporters “wandering unescorted” on the sixth floor. Murillo said in the report that she knew they weren’t city staff because “one of them was wearing a tank top.” Williams said Murillo offered to walk them up to the seventh floor to help them with their request.

“When I grabbed my jacket, they offered to help me put it on,” Murillo wrote. “They were being overtly nice, so I knew something was up.”

Murillo passed the reporters to Financial Service Operations Manager Marcelle Rossman. Rossman said she offered to assist the reporters and asked them to wait in the entryway. While Rossman searched the city’s file system for the documents, she said, the two reporters “walked about 25 yards into the Comptroller Offices and were examining the labels on storage boxes temporarily stored in the hallways.”

Williams recalls looking at the boxes but said they were located near the area where they were waiting—she said they didn’t get up from the waiting area and that she never touched anything. Cervantes said there was a binder of documents near her on the couch; she flipped through it but then returned it.

“I anticipated Marcelle would come out and say we could look in the boxes,” Williams said.

Rossman told the two to return to the waiting area while she looked into their request. The reporters, however, walked back into the office, Rossman said, and she repeated her request for them to wait. At this point, things got heated, but neither Williams nor Rossman can say how. The three women began arguing over whether the reporters had the right to review the documents then and there. Williams said the documents she wanted—mostly checks from the city to vendors—are “basic public documents” that she had no trouble getting in the past. Rossman wanted time to review the request and to get advice from a city attorney, whom Rossman said she couldn’t reach.

Student's Attorney Fee Award Gets Haircut

FREE PRESS --  A Marin County school district owes a student's attorney a much lower legal bill after illegally censoring the student's article eight years ago, reports Brian Stewart for the Student Press Law Center.

Instead of the nearly $1.5 million legal bill initially requested by Andrew Smith — who penned an article in 2001 that was censored by administrators — a trial court ruled the Novato Unified School District will pay $336,350 in attorney fees. The California Court of Appeal in San Francisco, Calif., affirmed that decision May 28.

The only matter left to settle is the amount of interest the school district will be required to pay on that total, which a trial court will decide within a few months, said Stephan Birgel, who represented the school district.

Birgel said the reduced amount was "a good ruling," noting he felt the requested $1.5 million was "very unrealistic." Birgel said the figure was high because the plaintiffs had included "a lot of excess," including charging to rent cars, learning new trial technology, and claiming six hours of attorney fees for a one-page form.

The lawsuit stemmed from Smith's 2001 editorial titled "Immigration" in the school's newspaper, the Buzz. Smith criticized immigration laws, causing some students to protest. Then-Principal Lisa Schwartz quickly implemented prior review and postponed a second column by Smith titled "Reverse Racism."

Water Manager Tries to Shut off (News) Leaks

FREE PRESS -- Following a recent meeting with editors of the Antelope Valley Press, Randy Hill, general manager of the Palmdale Water District, denounced the newspaper for publishing an internal memo he circulated that alluded to the district's financial woes.  Then, the Valley Press reports, he went after his own staff to stanch future leaks. 

But the e-mail memo threatening them was also leaked.

The e-mail stated: Effective immediately while working for PWD no employee is to converse, or share information in any way with Antelope Valley Press reporter Alisha Semchuck. Anyone contacted by Alisha should immediately refer her to the General Manager. Failure to follow this directive will subject an employee to disciplinary action up to and including termination.

*****

Leaks to the media about dealings at government agencies are nearly impossible to suppress, according to (Jim) Ewert, legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association in Sacramento.

Whether government or corporate whistle-blowing, Ewert called leaks to the media "a time-honored tradition."

Demolishing a communication relationship with the press is equally ineffective, Ewert said.

"He's cutting off his nose to spite his face if he thinks he's going to control the flow (of information)," Ewert said.

Targeting a reporter to be singled out is shaky practice viewed through the lens of case law, Ewert said.

"If they're going to provide access to one media source, they must provide to all," Ewert said. "They have to treat all media sources the same." That conclusion falls under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Hill, reached for comment by the reporter for this story, said that singling her out was not the whole intent of his order to cease and desist from supplying information to the Valley Press.

"It applies to all media," Hill said of his memos. "I just happened to use your name because you've been the problem," he told the Valley Press reporter.

Confiscation of Student Magazine Sparks Wide Ire

FREE PRESS -- A California high school principal's confiscation of most copies of a student magazine reporting on the youthful tattoo phenomenon has prompted outrage from student journalists, free speech advocates, and a state lawmaker who says he'll take legislative action.

As noted in a press release from Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo),

Earlier this month, S.K. Johnson, principal of Orange High School in Orange, California, confiscated nearly all 300 copies of a student-produced magazine after he objected to the cover story regarding a growing trend of students getting tattoos after turning 18.  He has refused to allow issues of PULP magazine to be distributed and the students have since recessed for summer break.

“The principal’s actions clearly violate state law,” said Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo).  “Proudly, California has led the way in protecting student speech and press rights.  As the author of several of these laws, I will do all I can to support these students and ensure that administrators stop infringing on the legal rights of their students.”

Last year, Yee successfully passed a law to protect high school and college teachers and other employees from retaliation by administrators as a result of student speech, which most often happens when a journalism advisor or professor is disciplined for content in a student newspaper.  In 2006, Yee passed the law to prohibit censorship or prior restraint of student press by administrators and to protect students from being disciplined for engaging in speech or press activities.

Through the years, California has provided broad protections to student speech activity, only limiting expression which is obscene, libelous, slanderous, or would cause a substantial disruption of the orderly operation of the school.

In the case of Orange High School, the students attempted to publish a magazine that included an illustration on the cover showing a tattoo of the magazine’s name and image of the school mascot.  According to the Student Press Law Center, Johnson told students he felt the cover may encourage students to get tattooed and promote gang activity, although the article did not even mention gangs.

"I really do feel that they're trying to suppress us when all we're trying to do is report on the daily life and general life of our students," said PULP Editor-in-Chief Lynn Lai to the Student Press Law Center.

Court Strikes Most Defenses in Student Paper Case

FREE PRESS -- High school students and their faculty advisor on the school newspaper convinced a federal judge in San Diego to strike most of the affirmative defenses raised by their school district in a lawsuit over a principal's decision to shut down the newspaper over content disputes, reports Scott Clines for Courthouse News Service.

During the 2007-08 school year, Fallbrook High School seniors Chantal Ariosta and Margaret Dupes wrote articles for the student paper, The Tomahawk. Ariosta's article was critical of former Fallbrook Union High School superintendent Tom Anthony's refusal to comply with a fire marshal request to close Fallbrook High School for use as an evacuation center during the wildfires of October 2007.

Dupes wrote an editorial that critiqued the Bush administration's abstinence-only sex education policies and a supporting rally held at the school that year.

Fallbrook High School principal Rod King ordered the articles removed shortly after they were published.

Teacher David Evans served as the faculty advisor to the journalism class and the student paper. In June 2008, he complained to the school district's president about King's actions in removing the articles.

The next day, King met with Evans and expressed his displeasure over Evans' conversation with the school district president. During this meeting, King informed Evans that the journalism class was canceled and The Tomahawk would no longer be published.

Evans, Ariosta, Dupes and a third student editor named Daniela Rogulj, along with two other students who planned on taking the journalism class before it was canceled, filed suit against the school district and King. The lawsuit alleges violations of California law and federal constitutional violations, including violations of the First Amendment.
 

Reporter Subpoenaed by Military Defendant

FREE PRESS -- A military judge has ordered a news reporter to obey a subpoena and testify in the case of a Camp Pendleton Marine who is facing a court-martial for an interview he gave over the handling of classified material, reports Greg Moran for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

In a 12-page ruling released Monday, Cmdr. Kevin O'Neil said the rights of the accused, Pvt. Gary Maziarz, to a fair trial outweigh the First Amendment rights claimed by Rick Rogers, a reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Maziarz is facing a charge of willfully disobeying a direct order. Prosecutors say he was under orders not to discuss his role in a ring of Marines who passed top-secret intelligence files on individuals under surveillance to a Los Angeles civilian law enforcement agency.

In 2007, Maziarz pleaded guilty to mishandling classified material and theft of government property and was released from the brig last July. Afterward, Rogers interviewed him for a story that was published in November 2008.

In a subsequent story, Maziarz said he had not been ordered to stay away from the news media and that his lawyer then, appointed by the military, approved his speaking with the newspaper.

Maziarz's new lawyer says Rogers' testimony about his conversations with Maziarz seeking the interview is needed to rebut the charge that he “willfully” disobeyed the order.

California law, which does not bind a military court but which could provide an argument supporting the subpoena under these circumstances, holds that even a strong journalist's shield law like that of this state may be trumped where the subpoenaed information

• is sought by the defendant in a criminal trial; and
• is not available from another source (or from one as neutral as the journalist); and
  
• is important as evidence for the defendant's case; and
  
• would not disclose a confidential source; and
• where its compelled disclosure would not make the journalist's job more difficult in the future.

The rationale: the defendant's federal Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial—and "every man's evidence"—supersedes a state constitutional right like California's shield law for journalists.

New Freedom for the Press, If Not the Staff

FREE PRESS -- As a remarkable departure from the general decline of inmate-written and edited newspapers in recent decades, the San Quentin News is born again, reports Michelle Locke for the Associated Press.

The revival of the News last year, after a hiatus of nearly two decades, goes against a national trend of shrinking prison journalism, said James McGrath Morris, who wrote about the penal press in his book "Jailhouse Journalism."

"San Quentin is sort of like a flower coming up in a barren garden," he said.

Lt. Rudy Luna, the program sponsor, said it is not clear why the San Quentin News quit publishing, but the impetus to restart it last year came from then-Warden Robert Ayers. The plan was to teach inmates skills and keep the community informed.

"A lot of the issues with inmates are just lack of information and by putting that information out and telling them we have programs available, maybe we can bring them on board," said Luna.

Being an inmate reporter means unique challenges — no direct access to the Internet, no ability to make a quick phone call or send an e-mail. It also means having thousands of potential critics living right next to you.

Panel Wants a Sneak Peek at An Unflattering Film

FREE PRESS -- The California Coastal Commission has served a subpoena on documentary filmmaker Richard Oshen for a copy of his unreleased work, "Sins of Commission," a move which he fears may be preparatory to an efffort "to silence the film because it reveals strong links between California’s increasingly catastrophic wildfires and the Coastal Commission’s prohibition of critical brush clearance."

"Sins of Commission" examines decades of the Commission's land use policies and questions how a government body could and, indeed did, unilaterally extend its jurisdiction from 1000 yards landward of the coastline to 5 miles inland.

No matter what your politics, this isn’t America if a quasi-governmental body is going to dictate whether you have the right to see a film. This is a very chilling development, and does not bode well for documentary filmmakers or freedom of speech.

"Sins of Commission" is a work in progress.  For a government body to demand a work print if like asking a journalist for their notes, or an author for a copy of their book before publication.

To think, if the government doesn’t like what the see or read—they could issue an injunction and prevent a story from getting out is scary… very scary.

Public interest attorney Ronald A. Zumbrun began his February 12 article in Freedom Advocates, "The Unrepentant Sins Of The California Coastal Commission," with the following reference to the film—a reference that may have been the Commission's first clue that it was soon to get some unflattering publicity:

What do the former mayors of Malibu and San Diego, a former member of the California Coastal Commission, and a former captain of the County of Los Angeles Fire Department have in common? In a soon-to-be released documentary film entitled “Sins of Commission”, these former public servants, along with several other aggrieved property owners, describe in painful detail the transformation of the California Coastal Commission as a protector of the environment into a radical bureaucratic monster.

Who Says the Young Don't Read Newspapers?

FREE PRESS -- Graduates at U.C. Riverside don't need commencement speaker references to entry into "the real world."  They've got a student newspaper that was stolen from the campus newsracks in bulk when it published "a front-page article about questionable spending by UCR's former student government President Roxanna Sanchez, who spent almost $5,000 without authorization to fly herself and an intern to a conference they were not approved to attend," according to the Student Press Law Center. The unsolved ripoff echoes those done by public officials in San Francisco and Berkeley in recent years.

Judge: No First Amendment Right to Crash Scenes

FREE PRESS -- A journalist has no First Amendment right to shoot pictures at an accident scene from which the public has been excluded, a federal judge decided Tuesday, ruling against an Oakland Tribune photographer who was arrested for taking photos a police officer thought were inappropriate, reports the BayNewser.

The decision by U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer—younger brother of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer—is not surprising, although the facts of the case are outrageous for working photojournalists (not paparazzi, just ordinary news gatherers), and equally threatening to anyone using a cellphone camera to record an accident scene.

What is surprising is that the photographer's lawyer chose to sue in federal court. California law does provide the affirmative protection this plaintiff should have had, in Penal Code Section 409.5, subdivision (d).

409.5.(a) Whenever a menace to the public health or safety is created by a calamity including a  flood, storm, fire, earthquake, explosion, accident, or other disaster, officers of the Department of the California Highway Patrol, police departments, marshal's office or sheriff's office, any officer or employee of the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection designated a peace officer by subdivision (g) of Section 830.2, any officer or employee of the Department of Parks and Recreation designated a peace officer by subdivision (f) of Section 830.2, any officer or employee of the Department of Fish and Game designated a peace officer under subdivision (e) of Section 830.2, and any publicly employed full-time lifeguard or publicly employed full-time marine safety officer while acting in a supervisory position in the performance of his or her official duties, may close the area where the menace exists for the duration thereof by means of ropes, markers, or guards to any and all persons not authorized by the lifeguard or officer to enter or remain within the enclosed area.  If the calamity creates an immediate menace to the public health, the local health officer may close the area where the menace exists pursuant to the conditions set forth in this section.
   (b) Officers of the Department of the California Highway Patrol, police departments, marshal's office or sheriff's office, officers of the Department of Fish and Game designated as peace officers by subdivision (e) of Section 830.2, or officers of the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection designated as peace officers by subdivision (g) of Section 830.2 may close the immediate area surrounding any emergency field command post or any other command post activated for the purpose of abating any calamity enumerated in this section or any riot or other civil disturbance to any and all unauthorized persons pursuant to the conditions set forth in this section whether or not the field command post or other command post is located near to the actual calamity or riot or other civil disturbance.
   (c) Any unauthorized person who willfully and knowingly enters an area closed pursuant to subdivision (a) or (b) and who willfully remains within the area after receiving notice to evacuate or leave shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
   (d) Nothing in this section shall prevent a duly authorized representative of any news service, newspaper, or radio or television station or network from entering the areas closed pursuant to this section.