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At the state Capitol Monday, the revolution arrived earlier than expected. It wasn’t rioting over the economy but some very civil unrest by members of the mainstream media, upset over proposed restrictions at the Minnesota House of Representatives that would affect not only new media but all media.
The draft rules surfaced Friday to outrage among a local media that didn’t like to be told what and when they could videotape at House committee meetings. By Monday afternoon there was enough outrage for a meeting of a couple dozen media people led by the House DFL Caucus’ Andrew Wittenborg in a Capitol hearing room.
The proposed rules were the product of the House attorneys and leadership, the Sergeant-at-Arms office, Republicans and individual members of the media, Wittenborg said. But after hearing back from the media, the new strictures are out the window. To each item on a form video- and audio-tapers were to sign to get access to ply their trade in House committee hearings, Wittenborg repeated again and again: “I don’t see that as a restriction that will go forward.”
That was good news to the assembled news-gatherers, but many remained aghast.
“If a lawyer actually looked at this [he or she] should be disbarred” in view of First Amendment violations, said TPT’s Mary Lahammer, later adding that she found legal approval of the document “shocking.”
“I’m amazed we even got to the point where we’re discussing it publicly,” said KSTP-TV’s Tom Hauser.
Wittenborg was asked to explain the fear behind the House’s trepidation. “It runs the gamut: space concerns, security concerns.” Of the latter, he said, “We’re not talking about trackers,” adding that videotaping “has weirded people out.” Then, turning to KFAI-FM’s Marty Owings: “I think you weirded people out.” (Owings has probably had the most run-ins with the House Sergeant-at-Arms in his attempts to videotape during House committee hearings.)
That explanation didn’t sit right with Jason Barnett of The UpTake, who argued for broad rights for all citizens to shoot video at the Capitol and House committee hearings. The first thing you hear on a tour of the Capitol is “This is your building,’” he said. “If you’re not allowed to record in it, it’s not your building.”
Wittenborg said he’d bring the reporters’ concerns back to House leadership. Exactly what the next step will be is unclear.
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Comment posted March 9, 2009 @ 9:01 pm
Spooky Marty here. I think “weirded out” is subjective. I’ve been an irritant because I won’t go away. Bad quitter and all, I’d like to see some real transparency. I thought this problem would be resolved by bringing it to their attention, but I learned quickly that it was not going anywhere partly because they weren’t being motivated to do anything.
That isn’t to say that people hadn’t tried or weren’t pushing for greater access, they certainly were. I wasn’t getting anywhere until I just kept showing up everyday, day after day at the offices of Leadership, Sgt At Arms and the House Chambers. I’ve been called “irritating”, but I don’t take it too personal because this is more important than that.
In the end, what really brought this to a head was getting the rest of the Capitol madia to pay attention. I think the House Leadership did that when they put out the new “recording” rule. I’m glad there were so many journalists at the meeting, it really drove home the point.
I hope they sort this out soon. I want to report the news, not how we can’t get the news.
Pingback posted March 10, 2009 @ 7:19 am
[...] The on-line media has been debating and denouncing the policy for weeks: a sampling includes MnIndy, KFAI, TC Daily Planet, The Uptake, Radio Free Nation, Checks & Balances, and MinnPost. The [...]
Comment posted March 10, 2009 @ 1:07 pm
I’d have to agree with Jason & Marty on this one. There is no stopping the “new media” and the desire of the concerned, interested, citizens of MN to access, in real time, what is happening at the State Capital. The only other choice is the 30 seconds we get on the TV news (Almanac & AATC excluded of course), sound bites with interspersed in-depth [Radio Free Nation] on the radio (usually only NPR, MPR, or KFAI mind you) or the paragraph or two on page 6 of the local or metro sections of the newspapers. There are some of us who enjoy the uneditted “raw” version of the proceedings, ala C-SPAN. We get some MN proceedings on TPT-Life (raw, without commentary), but it’s not enough. More!! We want more!!
Comment posted March 10, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
The proposed rules were the product of the House attorneys and leadership, the Sergeant-at-Arms office, Republicans and individual members of the media, Wittenborg said.
How about some names, please? What morons signed off on this besides Sgt-at-Arms Sandy Dicke and Tony Sertich? Who are the attorneys? Who else in House leadership? And exactly who are the “individual members of the media” who approved of this? This has got to be one of the dumbest, most assinine proposals to ever come out of the capitol dome. The upside is, maybe this will fire up the MSM reporters to actually do some critical reporting again instead of playing stenographer for politicans’ press statements. If they don’t, the bloggers and “new media” will eat them alive. They probably will anyway.
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