SPJ, Others Urge Unimpeded Communication with Journalists for Federal Employees

/ Colorado SPJ

From SPJ NATIONAL

INDIANAPOLIS – The Society of Professional Journalists and 28 more journalism and open government groups sent a letter today [Nov. 8, 2019] to every member of Congress calling for support of unimpeded communication with journalists for all federal employees.

“It is essential to public welfare and democracy that this issue is addressed. Not allowing experts to speak freely to reporters is authoritarian and keeps sources from explaining a variety of things that are the public’s business,” the groups say in the letter.

“This ‘Censorship by PIO’ works in tandem with other assaults on free speech including restrictions on public records, threats and physical assaults on reporters, prosecution of whistleblowers and threats of prosecution against reporters.”

Many groups in the coalition of organizations have been working for several years to spark changes in the restrictions put on federal employees and the lack of freedom to speak to journalists.

“SPJ has done surveys and studies for many years and has found a relatively rapid trend toward federal agencies and others prohibiting staff members from communicating to journalists without reporting to public information officers or others charged with monitoring and managing these conversations,” said SPJ National President Patricia Gallagher Newberry. “It has become a cultural norm and an effective form of censorship, preventing information from reaching the public, leadership of the agencies themselves and even Congress.”

The groups note that the Scientific Integrity Act (H.R. 1709 and S. 775), as introduced by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), had the intent of allowing federal scientists to speak to the media as well as publish scientific findings, participate in scientific organizations and communicate in other ways.

The bill’s introduction would have been an important step in promoting discussion of these extraordinarily dangerous blockages to free speech. However, the little protection the bill contained for scientists’ right to speak to the press was stripped out in the Oct. 17 mark-up in the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

The organizations call on Congress to hold hearings on free speech issues and to work with the Executive Branch to complete a thorough examination on why free speech has become so undermined for millions of people that legislation is needed to allow free speech without reporting to authorities, and on what those restrictions do to the nation’s functioning.

“SPJ and its partners have sent letters to President Obama and more recently, President Trump, urging their attention to this issue. In addition, a coalition representing 53 journalism and open government groups met with President Obama’s press secretary at the White House in December 2015 about the issue. But it is still a widespread problem that needs to be addressed,” Newberry said.

Those organizations joining this most recent letter are:

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