As some in Congress toy with bailing out struggling newspapers and the president says he will be "happy to look at" such legislation, you have to wonder what it would mean if the press no longer were free of the very government it is supposed to watch.
Bureaucrats, police and politicians historically have probed and prodded, looking for ways to influence or control or use the press to their own ends. It certainly is no secret that in the past -- and likely now -- police have posed as reporters and photographers to gather information surreptitiously.
The nation's newspaper and television stations, faced with government's incessant tendency to encroach, have fought tooth and nail to keep cops out of their newsrooms and their work product out of state hands prior to, and after, publication. Reporters and photographers, they argue vociferously and correctly, are not government agents.
Despite that, there are examples of government perhaps getting too close. Court documents in Anchorage show an unsettling case in point.
In his 59-page motion to dismiss the charges against him, former Alaska House Speaker Pete Kott asserts his 2007 corruption trial was so rife with prosecutorial misconduct that he should go free. He argues the chief witness against him, Bill Allen, was not credible, that the government withheld evidence that would have helped his case.
The motion contains ugly revelations, including allegations about an Anchorage Police probe of Bill Allen's supposed sexual activities some years ago with underage girls -- and his effort to get one of them to recant. Apparently, Allen was antsy about the investigation going public.
From Page 39 of Kott's motion, filed by his lawyer, Sheryl Gordon McCloud:
"How important was it to Bill Allen that this information remain concealed? In an interview with Agent (Mary Beth) Kepner, following disclosure of the Chad Joy (whistleblower) complaint accusing Agent Kepner of improprieties in the public corruption investigations, Kepner explained that this was so important to Allen that he would 'become unglued' each time he learned of the possibility of any of it becoming public.
"Kepner explained in this interview that she would occasionally receive a 'heads-up' from a reporter, (Tony) Hopfinger (of the Alaska Dispatch), about articles that would be run in the newspaper; 'KEPNER advised this was very helpful, because it allowed her to do some investigative things before an item was going to be made public. It was also helpful because, if for example Hopfinger was going to run a story on Allen, she (sic) would contact KEPNER.
"This allowed KEPNER time to prepare ALLEN. ALLEN would become unglued whenever an article would appear involving allegations related to the APD sexual investigation. Clearly, it was very important to Allen to keep that material quiet, and limited; it therefore would have provided an enormous incentive to cooperate in the first place."
Hopfinger disputes the FBI agent's characterization of what he did as giving her a "heads-up."
"What she said makes it appear somehow I'm helping the government, and that's not the way it was," he said Wednesday. "I was working as a reporter."
The pressure on newsrooms does not stop with investigators mining information from reporters in the give-and-take of news gathering. Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, has offered the so-called "Newspaper Revitalization Act." It would offer struggling news outlets tax deals if they restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. It has not received much support or attention.
Thankfully.
Already facing dwindling advertising revenues, crushing debt and an economic typhoon, the news industry must not take on government as a partner in some scheme to reduce them to nonprofits. The rule is simple: Government money is government control.
As fast as you can say bailout, a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., would craft "guidelines" requiring "good news" or "diversity" or "balanced opinions" in nonprofit newspapers. And, golly, shouldn't they cooperate with authorities? Imagine, if you will, a newspaper Fairness Doctrine; newspapers actually more bland than the ones we have now. Wilbur F. Storey, a tough, firebrand editor of the mid-1800s who worked at the Detroit Free Press and the Chicago Times, had it right when he said, "It is a newspaper's duty to print the news and raise hell." You'll notice he said nothing about working with -- or for -- the government.
Paul Jenkins is editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet. He worked for Bill Allen as managing editor of The Anchorage Times and an editor of The Voice of the Times.
PAUL JENKINS
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