People like to complain about the media and we understand that. Given the state of our industry these days, it’s too easy to do. (Looking at you, MSNBC, Fox News, et al.)
In part, we think it’s because nobody really likes bad news, which is essentially the media’s stock in trade. Fires and car crashes, murders, assaults, and various criminals make for interesting stories, but invariably, at their core, they involve a hardship for someone.
Also, it is always easy to blame the messenger. The first thing someone in media trouble is likely to do is follow the time-honored tradition of claiming to be misquoted, taken out of context, or filtered through a reporter’s bias.
Sometimes, sadly, that’s true. More often than not, however, it’s just a cynical, albeit effective, ploy.
However, for all our collective faults, American media serves a vital function, which is recording the doings of government. That’s our core purpose. Everything else is just window dressing.
The function of a free press is to inform the citizenry of what the government is doing; an informed electorate being a vital component for a healthy democracy.
Despite its sunshine law, Maine, as it happens, is one of the more restrictive states when to comes to public information. Maine talks a good game about public access, but we lag far behind.
Still, it was stupefying to read in the Portland Press Herald this week that District Court Judge Jeffrey Moskowitz issued a gag order in a hearing involving Standish attorney Anthony J. Sineni III.
Moskowitz is reported to have specifically told reporters in his courtroom they could report only on what the attorneys said in open court. They could not report on what the witnesses said under oath, from the stand. Due to the order, Sineni’s case file remains closed at press time.
We’ll happily concede the judge’s legal acumen likely exceeds our own, but his order is so obviously illegal, as it is a clear-cut violation of the First Amendment, that it boggles the imagination. We can’t imagine how Judge Moskowitz thought he was in the right. A first-year law student could have told him otherwise. Hell, a high school civics class could have told him.
We specifically applaud the Portland Press Herald for explicitly defying the judge’s order in their reporting on the case. As we go to press, the judge has scheduled another hearing for Wednesday, although its purpose is unclear.
Let’s be clear. Our taxes pay for the government and the government belongs to you, us, every American citizen. We own it. We are it.
We support and fully endorse discretion in specific cases. Just as there are limits to free speech, there are obvious benefits to non-disclosure discretion. Just to cite one example, revealing the name of a sexual assault victim has been shown to negatively impact the victim, which is why most American media outlets follow a standard of not releasing those names.
However, when an instrument of our government shuts out the public illegally, the question we all need to ask is why? What are the people working for us trying to hide?
