With uncertainty surrounding press protections at the national level, the state of Illinois holds a strong reporter privilege statute.
That’s according to Don Craven, general counsel for Illinois Press Association and three other statewide journalism organizations. He’s held the job protecting journalists in court and legal litigation since the mid-1980s
On the federal level, the Trump administration has waged several attacks on the journalism industry, including the investigation of a Washington Post reporter’s home and a new press policy at the Pentagon that has been called restrictive, according to NPR.
But Craven said Illinois is in good shape compared to other states around the nation with laws like the Open Meetings Act and the Freedom of Information Act, also known as FOIA.
There is also a strong anti-SLAPP statute in the state, he said, or Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation.
“Let me give you an example: Walmart wants to come to town. Some little old lady doesn’t want Walmart and starts making all kinds of statements about how bad Walmart is, and Walmart sues her to shut her up,” said Craven in an interview on WGLT’s Sound Ideas.
“That’s a SLAPP act.”
In that case, an anti-SLAPP statute allows for the easy disposal of those cases.
Still, Craven said there’s some more room for improvement, like in how the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] is applied. He said the act has no mechanism to encourage public officials to comply with FOIA requests quickly.
“Some states have daily or weekly penalties that are imposed for withholding public records,” said Craven.
“I just saw a blurb from a southeastern Illinois school district. [They] withheld a subpoena from a federal grand jury that had been the subject of a FOIA request, and they delayed it for 18 months or so, and had to pay $75,000 in attorney’s fees.”
But that was paid with public funds, according to Craven. A statute could require public officials to “put their own skin in the game.”
Defending media
For up-and-coming journalists, Craven said those preparing to or having just left school have to remember why they chose the profession.
“You have to remember what role the media plays in the bigger picture; you have to remember that it’s the media’s job. The media is an educator,” he said. “You play the role of an educator to the greater community, and you have to take that role seriously.”
Craven said emerging reporters must also defend their role.
“…and you have to perform responsibly and professionally so that you don’t put yourself in the category of being the so-called ‘fake news,’” he said.
In his own work as an attorney defending media, Craven recalled a case from the 1990s over litigation with the Illinois Department of Public Health.
“I was in litigation…for over nine years to get access to information relating to cancer clusters of very young people who had neuroblastoma around the state, in some instances resulting from coal tar plants,” he said. “And the department of public health would only give it to us [as] Bloomington-south, Bloomington-north, which doesn’t do folks in Taylorville who want to know where other cancer clusters are any good at all.”
Craven fought for the rest of the results to help inform people in Southern Illinois on the clusters. The results came after the Illinois Supreme Court ordered the records to be turned over.
But not everyone shares Craven’s passion.
The public may have concern to be wary and skeptical of a newsroom, to not believe everything they see online. He framed the shuttering of local news as to shuttering a part of the community as well.
“If the newspaper shuts up and goes away, you get no obituaries, you get no weddings, you get no school news, you get no local sports,” said Craven. “You don’t get pictures of your kids and grandkids playing football or dancing or whatever.”
“A newspaper is, and local radio as well, is truly the heartbeat of a community, and communities lose that when local media is forced to go away.”
Changing newsrooms
In recent years, large corporate owners have agreed to settlements in lawsuits against the interest of their reporters to ward off further litigation, as is the case for Paramount or ABC News with President Trump.
Craven included himself in the category of those who disagree with those decisions.
“There are times when, because of the role that the press plays in our government…when the expenses have to be paid to defend our role and to fold, settle and go home for purely economic reasons, I think was not the right decision,” he said.
“I think the entire Trump administration has had a chilling effect on everybody except Jimmy Kimmel so far, because Kash Patel sues the Atlantic or whoever for $250 million, that slows people down, intentionally or unintentionally.”
Protections over time
Craven said public access over his 40 years on the job has ebbed and flowed, but the changes have largely been positive.
“The one exemption in FOIA that’s abused is the so-called, ‘deliberative process exemption.’ The drafts of documents aren’t subject to disclosure,” said Craven. “And that was read so broadly that even final reports from somebody — anything that is pre-decisional is exempt.”
Craven has also seen the number of newsrooms in the state decrease during his time while corporate ownership has increased. He said the volume of requests to his office, seeking help in stories that could possibly end up in litigation, is down.
“That’s simply because the number of reporters in newsrooms is less, you have less time to work on stories,” he said. “You’re not working on fewer stories, but you’re stretched thinner than you were before and that doesn’t add to the quality of journalism.”
Newsrooms have also expanded into the public sphere where anyone with a cell phone can be a citizen journalist. Craven said the proliferation of social media sites has both challenged and encouraged traditional journalism.
“All of that has impinged, if you will, on the ability of public radio [and] newspapers to get the attention of readers and listeners,” he said. “…and it makes it more difficult, because just because you see it on somebody’s Facebook post doesn’t mean that that person has done what you have done in order to put a story on the air.”
Craven said owners are less likely to allow reporters to pursue public records that require spending money on legal fees.
