Gov. Dave Heineman's office suspended a few principles of press freedom on Thursday when it banned Daily Nebraskan reporters from attending the governor's press conferences at the State Capitol.
The good news is the suspension was brief, given that it was unconstitutional and stirred up a controversy the governor's office desperately wished to avoid.
The bad news is the suspension illustrates just how cavalierly Heineman's press office treats issues of press freedom. The office apparently learned about the First Amendment at the College of Journalism a la the Gulag.
The Thursday hoopla started with the Daily Nebraskan's main, front-page story, which broke the news that one of the tour guides at the governor's mansion is a convicted murderer. Through a Corrections Department program, Timothy Haverkamp, who was involved in the brutal torture and murder of a fellow cult member in Nebraska more than 20 years ago, has been allowed to work outside of jail at the mansion since 2001.
The governor's office did not like the story. It also did not like the way the story was reported, pointing out that the Daily Nebraskan initially set up a tour of the governor's mansion for an unrelated story but used reporting from that tour to write the Haverkamp story.
That chronology is accurate. But it is absurd to contend that such a series of events represents a breach of journalism ethics.
When reporters work on stories, they sometimes come across leads for different stories. They then pursue those leads. This is how journalism works.
The governor's office, apparently, disagrees. Thursday afternoon, it contacted the Daily Nebraskan, relaying that the DN would no longer receive press releases or be allowed to attend press conferences. One communications official said the office would contact security to have Daily Nebraskan reporters removed if they showed up at the governor's office for a press conference.
A few hours later, after other news organizations began to question the governor's office about the press-conference ban, the office clarified its position, saying it would not invite Daily Nebraskan reporters to press conferences, but it would also not force them to leave.
How thoughtful of them to abstain from abridging the freedom of speech.
Adam Goldstein, the attorney advocate for the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C., told the Daily Nebraskan on Thursday that the office's reaction was "indistinguishable from a 2-year-old's temper tantrum, except the 2-year-old isn't breaking the law."
It's pretty clear that banning DN reporters from press conferences would break the law.
A 2006 decision by the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals probably gives the best metric to judge whether the governor's ban would be unconstitutional.
The decision says it is illegal for the government to "chill" the First Amendment rights of reporters. A press-conference ban on an entire newspaper should easily fall under the category of chilling.
In the future, if the governor's office wishes to avoid a lawsuit, it should refrain from rash, infantile, unconstitutional overreactions.
More to the point, Thursday's arrogant, self-righteous, tyrannical response from the governor's press office, especially from Communications Director Jen Rae Hein, illustrates exactly the wrong way for the office to respond to criticism.
A more productive reaction might have been to explain why a convicted murderer gives tours at the governor's mansion.
That certainly would have been more productive than attacking the freedom of the press. Talk about shooting the messenger.
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