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Los Angeles Times reporter Alain Chekmedian was very interested: Internal documents show that county sheriff’s officers tried to cover up an incident in which a deputy knelt on a prisoner’s head.
But after her latest article on the scandal, Sheriff Alex Villanueva convened a press conference to forcibly deny the allegations – and target Chekmedian. Standing in front of a photo of a reporter, political rival and district inspector general, Villanueva said the three were part of an investigation into a criminal leak.
“What did they know and when did they know it?” Read the caption above the photo display, which looked like a search poster.
It is known that government officials have long grumbled about the perceived injustice in covering the news. But Villanueva’s attempts to publicly implicate a reporter in doing her job – an attempt to intimidate her, some say – reflect the brazen tendency of government officials to use or repel journalists for articles they don’t like.
“This is another form of humiliating trust in our institutions,” said Tom Rosenstil, a professor of journalism at the University of Maryland and former executive director of the American Press Institute. “These are steps towards autocracy.”
Recent incidents include:
– When a reporter from St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote an article revealing a security flaw on a state education website, with Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (right) denouncing him a “hacker” and asking police to investigate him as a crime. Months later, the prosecutor announced he would not press charges.
– Last year in Iowa, Polk County Attorney John Sarkone (D) prosecuted a Des Moines reporter who was arrested while covering racial justice protests in 2020, accusing her of not broadcasting and meddling in official activities. In the end, the jury acquitted Andrea Sahuri of criminal charges after a trial that puzzled defenders of freedom of the press.
– Last year, a North Carolina judge blocked journalists from his courtroom for several weeks without explanation; when a publisher of a local newspaper protested, the judge handcuffed him and threw him out, threatening to disrespect him. The case was particularly shocking to defenders of the First Amendment, as the Supreme Court broadly upheld the right of journalists to have access to criminal proceedings.
– A Republican MP in Tennessee presented a resolution in January aimed at the Associated Press to investigate patterns of discrimination and racism in the military. Although the story was widely praised, MP Bud Hulsey’s resolution called it “the lowest form of yellow journalism” and said the AP “should be held accountable by the American public and their elected officials.” Halsey eventually withdrew the resolution.
– The Florida County Commission said goodbye last year to an outgoing local columnist who wrote criticism of the nationwide panel, unanimously delivering a sarcastic statement. a resolution ridiculing her work and her immigrant background. One of the commissioners told The Post: “If he can wash it, he should be able to take it.”
Observers see a number of potential reasons why officials were willing to use their official powers to undermine journalists. Free for all social media, abounding in attacks on the press, may have contributed to an atmosphere of greater impunity, said Kirstin McCudden, vice president of the editorial for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports free … speech problems.
She believes that the relentless demonization by former President Donald Trump of journalists as “enemies of the people” and providers of “fake news” has also contributed.
Because many Americans say they do not trust the press, some government officials “think there is a political advantage” to attack journalists directly, Rosenstyle said.
More than 100 journalists in the United States were arrested or detained during a report in 2020. Many were involved in police purges while covering protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd, and most saw their charges dropped. prosecutors who admit they were just at work – but not all.
Incidents like these have led Reporters Without Borders to rank the United States 44th in its global survey on press freedom, after countries such as Botswana, Cyprus and Uruguay.
Villanueva, a Democrat recently alienated from the local party who appeared at some GOP events during her re-election campaign this year, has a long feud with the Times, the largest newspaper in Southern California. One of his advertising campaigns showed his letter to the newspaper’s editorial board, which refused to participate in the interviews for approval, Los Angeles magazine reported. In large letters at the top of the ad: “# $ @!% YOUR APPROVAL”
At a news conference on Tuesday, Vilanevva suggested that the accusations against him were made by a conspiracy of his political rivals – and hinted that the Times was part of him. He addressed Chekmedian, who was there, to cover the press conference. “Maybe you should start clarifying what exactly you did with it and from whom you took it and when you received it,” he told the reporter. “That’s a question for you.”
Hours later, after Villanev’s outburst spread on social media, he tried to back down, calling the response to his comments “incredible insanity.” He wrote on Twitter: “We have no interest in prosecuting or prosecuting reporters.
Kevin Merida, executive editor of the Times, called Vilanev’s press conference an “outrageous” attack on reporters’ rights under the First Amendment.
“His attempt to criminalize news reporting runs counter to well-established constitutional law,” Merida said in a statement. The newspaper’s lawyers warned Vilaneuva that the threat of prosecuting Chekmedian “is an abuse of office that risks putting you and the county on legal responsibility,” according to a copy of their letter from the Times.
Villanueva’s actions do not only affect Chekmedian, said Katie Townsend, legal director of the Reporters’ Committee on Freedom of the Press. “This sends an embarrassing message to all journalists that if they report true but embarrassing information about the department, they will also be targeted,” she said. “That is why using such tactics is so disastrous. This is not only retaliatory, but also threatens to cool other important news in the public interest. “
Proponents of press freedom were similarly alarmed last fall when Parson, the governor of Missouri, launched his attack on the St. Louis newspaper. Josh Reno of Post-Dispatch reports a security vulnerability he found on the Missouri teachers’ website, where the social security numbers of about 100,000 school employees can be seen by anyone researching the website’s source code. But Parson insisted Renault was like that “Acts against the state agency to compromise teachers’ personal information in an attempt to embarrass the state and sell headlines for their news center.”
But according to documents from The Washington Post, Renault warned officials about the security vulnerability before publishing its article so they could have a chance to fix it. Some government officials even suggested issuing a statement thanking “a member of the media who brought this to the attention of the state.”
At Parsons’ behest, the state traffic patrol had been investigating the case for months. Eventually, a local prosecutor refused to file criminal charges. “This decision is a relief. But that does not repair the damage done to me and my family, “Renault said in a statement. “It was a political persecution of a journalist, simply and clearly.”
Isadora Rangel, a columnist who was named for ridicule by the Brevard County, Florida commission when she left work last year, was just as angry.
“They feel empowered to use this time devoted to county issues for personal issues,” she told The Post at the time. “Is this really the government?” Is it the job of a selected employee to use his official position to engage in personal tirades and to attack people?
The governor of Missouri accused a journalist who warned the state of a lack of cybersecurity in criminal “hacking”
An Iowa reporter was acquitted in a lawsuit that shocked defenders of press freedom
A North Carolina judge blocks journalists from his courtroom. One of them objected – and he was handcuffed.
Florida local authorities pass a resolution mocking the work of a newspaper columnist and immigrant backgrounds
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