Another election season, and another journalist is kicked out of a political meeting in the Intermountain West.
On Saturday, the Colorado Republican Party booted Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish from its convention in Pueblo because it didn’t like her reporting. In a response to TV station Denver7 as to why Fish – a long-time, highly respected, nationally recognized journalist – was ejected, the state GOP chair resorted to name-calling and bumper-sticker rage.
Of course, the SPJ Rio Grande board of directors condemns the decision of the Colorado Republican Party’s leadership to remove Fish from the convention, as it would condemn the singling out and removal of any reporter from any publicly important event. It doubly condemns the Pueblo County Sheriff’s deputy who stepped in to remove a non-confrontational, non-threatening reporter from a gathering for which she had the proper credential. “They don’t want you here,” he told her, “so I gotta get you outta here.” That’s a job for the event organizer, not law enforcement.
Members of the public have a right to know what their elected officials are doing and how they are chosen. Reporters like Fish stand in for the public and its interests when they attend meetings like party conventions. No one running for elected office – or choosing those running for elected office – should pick and choose among journalists, selecting only those who provide ‘positive’ coverage. Using a taxpayer funded law enforcement agency as the party’s private security force to oust a reporter only adds to the public insult.
A year and a half ago, something similar happened when Shaun Griswold, then-reporter and now-editor of Source New Mexico, was kept out of a campaign rally for Republican New Mexico gubernatorial candidate Mark Ronchetti. Like Fish, Griswold kept his cool and kept reporting, leading to a memorable photo of a journalist in action, getting the story on behalf of the public.
In one of his early drafts of the First Amendment, James Madison wrote: “The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.”
We join JAWS, the national branch of SPJ, numerous Colorado press organizations and pretty much every other journalism group in the country in calling out the Colorado GOP and calling upon leaders of all political parties to uphold the freedom of the press as the founding fathers intended it — as a bulwark of liberty, even and especially when it’s uncomfortable.
