Bloggers in one corner, journalists in the other. Or is it bloggers versus journalists?
Perhaps this is a false dichotomy, or an outdated one. After all, it was nearly two years ago that New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen wrote an essay for his influential blog, PressThink, called “Bloggers vs. Journalists Is Over.” Yet, judging by the hostility it still generates, this argument may just be getting revved up.
Within media circles, for instance, one of the most talked-about essays of the summer was a long, somewhat jaundiced take on blogworld written for The New Yorker by Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Although Lemann, a veteran journalist and author, was reasonably nuanced in his argument (the title, “Amateur Hour,” was as provocative as anything he actually wrote), he immediately came under attack from what might be called the blog triumphalists. And every day, blogs on both the right (Little Green Footballs, Power Line) and the left (the Daily Kos, Eschaton) are brimming with snide contempt for what they invariably describe as the “MSM”—dismissive shorthand for the mainstream media.
Then there’s Dan Gillmor. An unassuming 55-year-old former technology columnist and professional musician, he is the unlikely revolutionary behind what may prove to be the reinvention of journalism. As the founder of the Center for Citizen Media, a fledgling think tank affiliated with Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Gillmor occupies the middle ground between the MSM and the blog triumphalists. His goal: to help the nascent citizen-journalism movement raise its standards and boost its influence, while also helping mainstream media organizations use technology to reach out to what he likes to call the “former audience.”
]]>CFAC today filed suit against Santa Clara County to force it to make public computer-readable mapping data that the county now sells to a handful of customers at eye-popping fees that can run to the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The suit, filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court, claims that the digital files are public documents, copies of which must be released under the California Public records Act and Prop 59, the open-government constitutional amendment enacted in 2004. The county, in its denial of the records request, argues (among other things) that the mapping data are proprietary and copyrighted.
The mapping data are part of Santa Clara County’s geographic information system, or GIS, which provides a computerized, visual depiction of all land in the county. The so-called “base map,” which CFAC requested, is the foundation of the GIS, and shows such things as the boundaries of all property parcels, the tax assessor’s parcel number for all properties, and the street address for each parcel.
To this can be added many other categories of data, including utilities, soil survey information, ambulance response areas, geological fault lines, flood zones, noise areas and more.
Think “Google Earth,” but for just Santa Clara.
Under current policies, the county makes the base map data available to the public, but at fees that are vastly higher than what the Public Records Act allows. The fee for county-wide parcel information, for example, is approximately $250,000. In addition, those receiving the data are required by the county to sign a non-
disclosure agreement.
“The county, through the combination of prohibitively high fees and restrictions on use of the data, has created a monopoly,” said Peter Scheer, CFAC’s executive director. “Our law suit seeks to break down this monopoly and make the mapping data available to the people who paid for it---namely, the public,” Scheer said.
Scheer said that if the county base map were readily available, citizens would be able to see if their property is fairly assessed, or if they are being overcharged for home or flood insurance. “Access to the base map makes it possible for citizens to see hold local government more accountable,” he said.
CFAC also argues that making GIS mapping data generally available will benefit the public by leveling the playing field for regulatory decisions. “Real estate developers can afford to pay for the GIS database, but residents living near a development site don’t have access because they can’t pay the huge license fees,” said CFAC counsel Rachel Matteo-Boehm, a lawyer with the firm of Holme Roberts & Owen LLP in San Francisco.
Public disclosure of the GIS base map will “provide the public with an essential tool for monitoring its government,” she said.
Most counties in California have GIS systems. Policies regarding public access vary from county to county. San Diego County recently abandoned its practice of charging hefty license fees for use of the county GIS, having concluded, on the basis of a 2005 Attorney General legal opinion, that the mapping data were public records and had to be released.
]]>Ginger Moorhouse, publisher and board chairman of the Bakersfield Californian, has joined the Board of Directors of the California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC), the open-government advocacy organization announced today.
“Ginger will be a great addition to our board,” said Paul Gullixson, CFAC president. “She brings a wealth of media experience and saavy, and she cares passionately about free speech and open-government rights,” he said.
Moorhouse is past president of the California Newspaper Publisher’s Association (CNPA) and former board member of Inland Press Association. In 2003 she was named Publisher of the Year by Editor & Publisher, an industry trade magazine.
Moorhouse is part of a venerable California institution. As publisher of the Bakersfield Californian, she is the fourth generation of her family to lead the newspaper since 1897.
CFAC in recent months has expanded its board. In addition to Moorhouse, new board members include Stephen Barnett, First Amendment scholar and professor emeritus at Boalt Hall, David E. Lee, Executive Director of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee, Dan Day, Managing Editor for the Modesto Bee, and Dan Gillmor, founder and Director of the Center for Citizen Media.
CFAC is a nonprofit public interest organization dedicated to advancing free speech and open-government rights. A membership organization, CFAC’s activities include educational and informational programs, participation in “test case” litigation to enhance First Amendment rights for the largest number of citizens, and legislative oversight of bills affecting free speech.
CFAC’s members are newspapers and other news organizations, libraries, civic organizations, academics, freelance journalists, community activists--and ordinary individuals seeking help in asserting rights of citizenship.
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“Jailing reporters and employing other means to force them to reveal
confidential sources or hand over unpublished material stifles the free
flow of information, muzzles whistleblowers and prevents reporters from
doing their Constitutionally-prescribed job of keeping the public informed,”
the CFAC board resolution states.
CFAC called on U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup to
lift his contempt order and free Josh Wolf, a freelance filmmaker jailed
on Aug. l, and demanded that the U.S. Department of Justice drop its
“indefensible and senseless campaign to punish Wolf via the federal court
system.” Wolf was jailed for refusing to honor a federal grand jury
subpoena for the out-takes of his filming of a 2005 San Francisco
street demonstration that turned violent.
Also this week, CFAC filed an amicus brief in Wolf’s case, which is now on appeal to the federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The brief, also filed on behalf of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Society of Professional Journalists and the WIW Freedom to Write Fund, urges adoption of a “reporter’s privilege” based both on the first amendment and on the federal Rules of Evidence.
The CFAC resolution calls on U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White to withdraw his threat to jail San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, and to rescind his order compelling the reporters to disclose their confidential sources for grand jury testimony given by Barry Bonds and other athletes concerning use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports.
CFAC urged federal prosecutors to “drop this persecution of two journalists who, by their work, have greatly expanded public awareness of the role of performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports.”
CFAC once again urged the U.S. Congress to approve a federal shield law
that would “protect the confidentiality of journalists’ sources, encourage
exposure of government wrongdoing via anonymous whistleblowers, protect
the free flow of information and prevent the very kind of confrontations
on display in San Francisco in which journalists are being placed behind
bars for simply exercizing the freedoms spelled out by the framers of our
Constitution.”
The resolution notes that, while California has a shield law that “protects journalists from being required to hand over unpublished material or disclose confidential sources to prosecutors, “prosecutors
in the Wolf case have “tried to sidestep this law by seeking prosecution
in federal court on the hollow arugment that a police car, burned
during the San Francisco demonstration, was paid for partly with federal funds.”
CFAC is is a nonprofit public interest organization dedicated to advancing free speech and open-government rights. A membership organization, CFAC’s activities include educational and informational programs, participation in “test case” litigation to enhance first amendment rights for the largest number of citizens, and legislative oversight of bills affecting free speech.
CFAC’s members are newspapers and other news organizations, libraries, civic organizations, academics, freelance journalists, community activists--and ordinary individuals seeking help in asserting rights of citizenship.
The full CFAC resolution is reprinted starting on the front page of this website. The amicus brief in the Wolf case is available here.
CONTACT:
Paul C. Gullixson
CFAC Board President
The Press Democrat
Phone: (707) 521-5282
WHEREAS rather than upholding these values, a federal district court in San
Francisco has jailed freelance filmmaker Josh Wolf since Aug. 1 for
refusing to honor a grand jury subpoena for the “out-takes” of his filming
of a San Francisco street demonstration; and
WHEREAS California has a shield law that protects journalists from being
required to hand over unpublished material or disclose confidential sources
to prosecutors; and whereas prosecutors in the Wolf case have tried to
sidestep this law by seeking prosecution in federal court on the hollow
argument that a police car that was burned during the San Francisco
demonstration was paid for with federal funds; and
WHEREAS San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance
Williams this week were similarly threatened by a San Francisco federal
court judge with jail time if they don’t reveal their sources of grand jury
testimony by Barry Bonds and other athletes concerning the use of steroids
and other performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports; and
WHEREAS jailing reporters and employing other means to force them to reveal
confidential sources or hand over unpublished material stifles the free
flow of information, muzzles whistleblowing and has a chilling effect on
the ability of reporters to exercise their constitutionally protected
responsibilities to educate the public.
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Directors of the California
First Amendment Coalition opposes these unrestrained attacks on a free
press and calls upon U.S. District Court Judge Alsup to lift his contempt
order and free Josh Wolf from jail; and demands that the U.S. Department of
Justice drop its indefensible and senseless campaign to punish Wolf via the
federal court system; and
LET IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED that the CFAC Board of Directors likewise calls
upon U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White to lift his order compelling
Fainaru-Wada and Williams to disclose their confidential sources and urges
federal prosecutors to drop this persecution of two journalists who, by
their work, have greatly expanded public awareness of the role of
performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports, and
LET IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED that the CFAC board once again urges Congress to
approve a federal shield law that will protect the confidentiality of
journalists’ sources, encourage exposure of government wrongdoing via
anonymous whistleblowers; protect the free flow of information and prevent
the very kind of confrontations on display in San Francisco in which
journalists are being placed behind bars for simply exercising the freedoms
spelled out by the framers of our Constitution.
--August 16, 2006
The California First Amendment Coalition, together with its current executive director and its former general counsel, has been named the 2006 recipient of the Eugene S. Pulliam First Amendment Award for the defense and protection of First Amendment rights.
The national award, administered by the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation, is named for the former publisher of the Indianapolis Star, Eugene Pulliam, known for his support of free speech and free press causes. The award includes a $10,000 cash prize.
The 2006 award will be shared by CFAC, its executive director Peter Scheer, and by Terry Francke, CFAC’s general counsel for many years. Scheer joined CFAC as executive director in 2004. In the same year Francke resigned from CFAC, and has established a new nonprofit organization, Californians Aware, whose goals and activities are similar to CFAC’s.
Previous Pulliam Award winners include Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, DC; Dan Christensen of the Miami Daily Business Review, for reporting on secret court cases in the U.S. District Court in Miami; and San Francisco Chronicle reporter Seth Rosenfeld for historical reporting on government surveillance of UC student activists in the 1950s and 60s.
The award will be presented at this year’s convention and national journalism conference of the Society of Professional Journalists, to be held in Chicago in late August.
Here’s the press release on the 2006 award to CFAC, Scheer and Francke.
]]>CFAC’s Peter Scheer is interviewed by NPR’s Alex Chadwick about the 5th Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination as a possible defense for reporters facing subpoenas in criminal “leak” investigations---the subject of an article recently published on Slate.com. The 5th Amendment may offer an additional defense, not a substitute for 1st Amendment defenses, Scheer says. Listen to the interview.
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