Free Speech If You Can Get It

As a reporter, I've mostly enjoyed pretty open access to our government leaders on the local level, and even to a small extent on the state and national level.

Until now.

For the first time ever, I am seriously considering having to file a complaint about First Amendment violations that have inhibited my role as a member of the fourth estate.

When the mayor first took office a year and a half ago, he held a "surprise" news conference with three other council members to announce a fifth member's appointment to council. This was not a vote, but since they knew they had the votes, they went ahead and announced it. They did not invite the two remaining council members, they did not one of our television stations, and they did not invite the public.

At the time, I was seriously concerned that this was a breach of the open meetings law because the four of them could constitute a quorum. However, no vote was actually taken, and the excluded TV station didn't plan to file a complaint, so I let it go.

It did not occur to me until this week, when I really started to re-examine some other things that have happened in recent weeks, that this press conference in late June or early July 2004, may actually have been the first of many violations of the open meetings rules, and a much bigger breach than I had first thought.

Strictly speaking, anyone can call a press conference and invite whoever they want to invite. BUT in Virginia, if the people who call the conference are elected officials, and IF what they discuss can be construed as official business... that's a meeting. You can't invite the press without the public to an open meeting, and you can't invite the public without the press. In other words, once you have what appears to be an official meeting, it has to be open to all, not just some. There has to be advance, written, printed notice of this type of meeting. (There wasn't.)

Add this to a few other infractions along the way (most notably, restrictions on public comment at two public meetings, one in November and again this week). The more I think about the big picture of all of this, the more concerned I am about the state of free speech, open government, and free press in our area.

Am I going to complain to the ACLU? The Jefferson Center? The open government coalition? I'm not sure.

On the one hand, I feel an obligation to do... something.

On the other hand, I feel an equal obligation not to get involved as doing so propels me from being an objective observer who can accurately report on the events into being more an active participant. Then I would feel compelled to "recuse" myself from any future reporting on the players involved... which would in effect mean I could not cover city council until more than half of it has been replaced. Not to mention what a complaint would do to my relationship with most of the city council members, with whom at this point I have been amicable and whom I consider good sources for story material.

So you see I have quite a quandary.

What I have done so far, is to report the truth, which is my first and foremost obligation. I did interview a representative from VCOG about some of this. I aired the concerns of one of the council members who was concerned over the limits on public comment. I also aired the "justification" for those limits from the council members in the majority position.

I see my job as more than a job. It's a calling. People who do what I do have a precious gift from the founders of our country: constitutional protection. No other job in the country can claim that. It's a beautiful freedom; it also comes with great responsibility. I would be lying if I said all reporters feel that way -- I know better. But I can't speak for them, I can only speak for me. I view all of these through the tinted lenses of what I view as my responsibility and calling as a journalist.

Will I do something? Probably. But what? When? And how?