Ceaseless struggle (continued)

THE PROJO’S GOOD NEWS

The Providence Journal’s role in the US District Court "gag order" controversy — publicizing it and taking part in fighting it — comes as no surprise. Although Rhode Island’s dominant daily has cut staffing and gone through some once-inconceivable changes (like closing the Newport bureau, in 2002) since the Dallas-based Belo Corporation acquired it in 1997, the newspaper’s sterling commitment to open government and open access to public records remains undiminished.

As Joseph V. Cavanagh Jr., who has represented the newspaper for more than 30 years, puts it, "Over the years, there have been so many instances — I really can’t count them — where the Journal has defended First Amendment rights and journalistic rights by going after issues of access to courtrooms, access to records, access to meetings, access to committee meetings of the General Assembly, access to Ethics Committee meetings, school committee meetings, town council meetings, police records, et cetera."

"They will often decide that it’s an important issue, that they don’t want a precedent to be set, so they’re willing to spend the time and money to go after it," Cavanagh continues. He cites a recent example in which the ProJo successfully challenged a judge’s ruling that certain witnesses didn’t have to offer their names and other key information in a Massachusetts hearing involving James Porter, the former priest who abused scores of children. "Over the years, the Journal has really been a champion of those matters, when the TV and radio stations have not had the interest to go forward as much. I think it’s really helped all of the media in this area."

Not every instance is a blockbuster, like when former executive editor Charles McCorkle Hauser decided in 1985 that the paper should publish — in defiance of a gag order imposed by US District Court Judge Francis J. Boyle — summaries of bugged conversations in the early ’60s from the Atwells Avenue office of New England mob boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca. (The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently reversed a contempt conviction imposed by Boyle on Hauser.) And although the Journal is thinner in local content than in the past, the ongoing quality of this fundamental commitment, along with the strong reporting out of the State House, and the intact four-person investigative team, show how the paper retains the core of its longtime identity.

The ProJo’s executive editor Joel Rawson, who typically declines to speak with the Phoenix, didn’t return a call seeking comment.

WPRI-WNAC’s Jack White, a former head of the Journal’s investigative team, is among those who appreciate the paper’s dedication to fighting for the public’s right to know. "I have to give the Journal a ton of credit for being willing to spend the money to try to get this information," he says. "Hands down, the Journal is the leader in doing this. They file complaints in cases to get information. In almost every instance, they are at the forefront of doing it. Some of the TV stations do it, [but] they overwhelmingly lead the way, and I give them credit, because it is a very expensive process . . . They put their money where their journalistic heart and belief is."

GOT A CHILLING EFFECT?

On September 9, US District Court Judge Mary Lisi sentenced lawyer Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr., who had breached a court order by a providing an FBI videotape from the Plunder Dome investigation to Channel 10 investigative reporter Jim Taricani, and then lied under oath about having done so, to 18 months in prison. This marked the last bit of official business related to the source confidentiality case that landed Taricani in four months of home confinement. Yet when it comes to the related matters involving Taricani, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, and Judith Miller of the New York Times (who remains imprisoned for refusing to identify a source for an unpublished story), assessing the fallout is an ongoing process.

As someone in academia, "I don’t have a real basis for commenting," says Andrew Horwitz, a professor at Roger Williams University’s law school. Still, he says, "I have to believe that the chilling effect is there," in terms of sources being less willing to share information in sensitive cases. "I can’t imagine functioning as a journalist in today’s environment," he says, and working under a source confidentiality agreement.

Similarly, the ACLU’s Steve Brown says, "I don’t think there’s any question that when a local TV reporter finds himself facing prison, there has to be an impact on reporting generally. This is not an abstract issue for the media in Rhode Island. One of their own was directly affected by the absence of a federal [shield] privilege, and I have to believe that it has an impact."

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press’s Lucy Dalglish says, "It really depends. I think the fallout in DC has been fairly substantial, because people are very familiar with those cases [involving Miller and Cooper]." In places with less attention on the same issues, "I don’t think there has been too much fallout yet. There are certain regions of the country where it has not been an issue."

Local reporters offer mixed views on the impact in Rhode Island.

"Whether you agree or disagree with what happened in the Taricani case, the circumstances were so unique that they don’t apply to what we do day in and day out as journalists," says Mike Stanton, the head of the Providence Journal’s four-person investigative team. "What distinguishes the Taricani case was that it was a specific tape under a specific court seal. I would say that 99 percent of the stuff that we do never really reaches that level. It really doesn’t affect me on a daily basis. I haven’t had people say, ‘I’m not going to talk to you because of what happened to Jim Taricani.’ "

But Jack White says, "There has been somewhat of a chilling effect, probably more from the news organization themselves than from sources of information. I think that news organizations are really looking whether or not it is worth it to get involved in stories that involve confidential sources. This is something that’s been building over the last decade. I just think that a lot of news organizations," particularly smaller daily newspapers, "have found it doesn’t pay for them to do heavy investigative stuff that might end up costing them a lot of money in legal fees."

For his part, Taricani detects "a new awareness of the consequences of protecting sources," and some of his journalistic peers have voiced doubts about "whether they would go through that whole process," and face prison time. On the whole, Taricani perceives "a bit of a chilling effect," but notes that he has also received calls from new sources impressed by his stance on the source confidentiality matter.

It’s worth remembering how the corporate owner of WJAR, NBC (which itself is owned by General Electric), backed Taricani to the hilt, although not without self-interest, covering more than $500,000 in legal fees and $85,000 in court fines.

The case was more muddy than widely recognized, in part because of how the reporter made it possible — inadvertently, he says — for the government to identify Bevilacqua as his source because of a "chance encounter" with a long-time FBI source (see "The trials of Jim Taricani," News, December 10, 2004). For his part, US District Court chief judge Ernest C. Torres — who used Taricani’s sentencing last year to describe how media coverage of the case had created five "myths" — clearly felt that the widespread pronouncements of journalistic integrity were overblown.

Taricani calls his stance "something that I needed to do." Being a center of attention as part of the story was difficult, he says, "but I thought it was something necessary and I have no regrets. I think I’m a better reporter for it."

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.