NPPA Asks Obama To Rescind Media Ban, Reduce Safety Zone

 

DURHAM, NC (July 6, 2010) – The National Press Photographers Association today asked President Barack Obama to order the rescinding of a ban on members of the media speaking with clean-up workers, and to instruct the federal government to work with the press to create a more reasonable "safety zone" for journalists who are covering the Gulf oil spill and attempting to document the Deepwater Horizon booming efforts.

"NPPA is outraged at reports that the U.S. Coast Guard has created an extremely restrictive 'safety zone' surrounding all Deepwater Horizon booming operations, and at reports that the federal government has banned members of the news media from speaking with clean-up workers," NPPA president Bob Carey wrote to the president.

"The Constitution provides First Amendment protection from governmental abridgment of press access. While that protection is limited by reasonable time, place and manner restrictions - a blanket ban keeping journalists at least 65 feet away from any activity related to the oil spill cleanup is overly broad and may limit more access than is necessary," Carey wrote.

NPPA also contends that the ban on speaking to clean-up workers is not "content neutral" and that journalists appear to be liable for prosecution "only when photographing areas near the spill or speaking with workers who are involved in the clean-up."

Content-based restrictions have, in the past, been found to be unconstitutional limitations on free speech, such as in Reno v. ACLU in 1997 when the Court found that the 1996 Communications Decency Act violated the First and Fifth Amendments because it amounted to a content-based restriction. NPPA's letter to President Obama cites Reno v. ACLU as an example of why the Gulf oil spill media ban needs to be removed immediately.

Copies of the letter were also sent to Congressional leaders and the heads of the agencies involved in the Gulf clean-up effort. In addition to the president, today NPPA's letter of objection went to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY); Congressman Walter Jones (R-NC); Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD); White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel; White House press secretary Robert Gibbs; U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Robert Papp, Jr.; BP CEO Tony Hayward; and the American Civil LIberties Union of Louisiana.

With the help of NPPA's general counsel, Mickey H. Osterreicher, and NPPA's Advocacy Committee, the letter was prepared for President Obama over the holiday weekend.

In a weekend incident, a freelance photographer was detained by BP and local police

 

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