The story about House Speaker David Gowan’s ruling that reporters who want to be on the floor with legislators have to submit to extensive background checks has been all over the news. Last I heard the ruling was still in effect Monday, and the reporters have all refused to submit. Gowan said he’s asking for the background checks because, 9/11. Ridiculous. Everyone knows the reason is to take revenge against Capitol Times reporter Hank Stephenson who wrote about Gowan’s misuse of state vehicles, which meant Gowan had to refund $12,000 to the state and is under investigation. Because Stephenson has a trespassing violation on his record, he would be barred from the floor under the new rules. This is a clear act of journalistic suppression by Gowan, letting reporters know they better not do any investigative journalism that uncovers improprieties committed by him or his buddies.
The Capitol Times editor, Jim Small, wrote a piece saying this is the third time Gowan has gone after Stephenson because of his story. The first time was Jan. 8 of this year.
On Jan. 8, four hours after the story about Gowan’s use of fleet vehicles was published, Grisham rescinded the Capitol Times’ access to the media gallery on the opening day of the legislative session.
When I called [House Republican spokeswoman Stephanie] Grisham to get an explanation, she made no bones about the fact that the paper’s access had been pulled because of the story. She accused the paper of working for Chandler attorney Tom Ryan, who was quoted in the original story saying he intended to file a complaint against Gowan and the others for misusing the state vehicles.
“This can be worked out with attorneys. I’m not going to go any further,” she said before hanging up the phone in the middle of my follow-up question.
Pulling access from the Capitol Times, whose main reason for existence is to report on the Capitol, is a blatant and unquestionable act of revenge, especially since Grisham told the paper it had seats in the gallery the night before the story was published.
A month later, the Republicans went after Stephenson again.
Then in early February, the House’s attorney wrote a letter to Lamb outlining claims of “rude and inappropriate conduct” on the House floor by Stephenson. He was accused of a “consistent lack of decorum” since the session began, including that he regularly types on his computer during the chamber’s daily prayer, that he was overly aggressive when questioning elected officials and that he asked accusatory questions of Gowan and House Majority Leader Steve Montenegro.
Those claims had no basis in fact, as evidenced by witness testimony we secured and recordings of the interviews cited by the House attorney.
Not coincidentally, the letter came a day after Stephenson asked Montenegro about his use of a state vehicle to attend a July 2015 American Legislative Exchange Conference summit in San Diego.
Gowan’s shameful actions are a high compliment to Hank Stephenson and the Capitol Times for doing what journalists are supposed to do, which is to search out and investigate relevant stories and report on them. And it’s a frightening statement about how far members of the Republican majority are willing to go to assert their power and privilege. I include the other Republicans along with Gowan since they’ve given their silent assent by not speaking out against his attempt to punish journalists for doing their jobs and telling the truth.
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2016.
How anyone could consider Gowen for US Congress aught to get their head examined. To draw a good analogy, it’s like considering Hillary Clinton for president after all the bad judgments and coverups.
This is odd David. I never read a word from you when the President chastised the national media and told them how to do their jobs. have a stumbled on the new Huffington Post, Tucson Edition?
President Obama delivered a stern rebuke to the media, for their role in the 2016 campaign and, as he sees it, not holding candidates accountable for “unworkable plans.”
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/29/472219989/president-obama-chides- media-for-2016-election-coverage
Like the Affordable Care Act which next year turns into a HMO on steroids with cash bonuses for doctors that keep us “cost effective.” Some warned us of death squads and they are now correct.
http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2016/04/obamacare-delivery-reform-000088
Did the Capitol Times get the scoop from Think Progress or vice versa?
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/04/08/3767777/david-gowan-bans-hank-stephenson-arizona/
Stephenson has a 2014 conviction for trespass, the result of a fight in Wickenburg.
Read more: http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2016/04/07/arizona-house-bans-reporters-who-wont-consent-to-background-checks/#ixzz45Z43ZP6M
I know. Why not declare “media free zones” like the have with guns. Look how well that works as it was modeled after the “drug free school zones.”
Good for the reporters.
At this point, I believe that all the reporters will begin a campaign to dig up whatever dirt they can on Speaker Gowen, and publish at will, with of course, documentation.
And file a Class Action Lawsuit for and abridgement of the First Ammendment.
9-11 ????
What kind of moron did they elect as speaker of the House?
Oh.. wait… wait.. don’t tell me: He was sponsored by the Center for Arizona Policy’s Cathi Herrod, a religious Right Wing Conservative Batschit Crazy Radical, who has one agenda.. to enter HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS into the political sphere, in contrast to the dictum of the First Amendment.
No wonder Gowen doesn’t understand the term “Freedom of the Press.”
What I’m thinking, is that they should require extensive background checks on all politicians, to the point that the politician would rather have a proctologist working on him than a reporter.
This would make our state legislature, house and senate, and Governor more accountable to the people of the state of Arizona, rather than their private interests.
Logial thinker:
It is the Republicans who came up with the term: “Death Squads”
For a good reason.
They want to deny 30 million Americans of health care.. many of whom would die without it.
That’s just under 10% of our national population.
A severe threat to our National Security.
They should all be tried for Treason for trying to destroy the core of the United States.
But they won’t.
Because there are enough people like you out there, that don’t understand what being uninsured means when you are seriously ill, can’t get the help you need, other than emergency services, and released from the hospital after stabilization, with nothing else to do, but die.
It’s people like you that make me wonder why I gave 12 years of my life to the USAF to protect your innate, unalienable right to be one of the most callous, uncaring, selfish, malicious monsters on our planet, just because you were born American.
You disgust me, and countless others with your brazen disregard, and flippant attitude toward your fellow Americans who are worse off than you.
My bet, is that you call yourself a Christian, which, I believe in your case, is an oxymoron.
You wouldn’t know Jesus if you met him on the street.
” for.. often,,, often… often.. Comes Christ in the Stranger’s guise.”
Think about your duplicity… then repent.. then find a better way to help those who are helpless.. or you WON’T be treated well at the end of the line.
That you can count on.
Oops, Carmine got me mixed up with RatT. I said nothing about the Affordable Car plan, which I wholeheartedly support.
Really Gowan is a lame duck, so he should not be able to make any new rules, in the final term in the House. Republican logic. Even his home town paper says he is a jack wagon for all these stupidities. And no non sequiturs allowed about the Clintons or FDR or the TUSD or Sanchez.
Is that a personal attack?
logical thinker.. my bad.. I looked at the name on top of the post instead of the bottom…
It was in reply to Rat T.
Sorry about that.
Carmine-James Pitaniello – Thank you for your posts. You are the voice of reason in a state full of inarticulate, narrow-minded and uninformed people. You give me (faint) hope!
Throughout this nation’s history, it is amazing how easily politicians of every ilk have brushed aside Constitutional rights when they are an inconvenience to their personal or political agendas. It should come as no surprise then when a local yokel like Gowan attempts to use his office to suppress the press. Too bad there is no quick mechanism to bounce people like this out of office before they can do further damage. Is it any wonder that the trust level of the public for most elected officials is lower than whale feces? Perhaps they should all be on double-secret probation for their first term in office and independently audited annually for any subsequent public service.
It is amusing to see Safier assuming a pose of old-fashioned righteous indignation over the sins of the Republicans he loves to hate. The concluding sentence to this piece might even lead us to believe that Safier thinks journalists’ job is “telling the truth,” and that they should not be interfered with while engaged in this important task. Several years of tracking the character of Safier’s selective coverage of state-level and local affairs and comparing it with what is going on in the institutions discussed, though, makes his motives for writing and his beliefs about what his role is clear. He is not one of the few (and highly valuable) actors on the journalistic scene who have an unadulterated desire to “tell the truth.”
Stop the posing, David. You can report on these issues and make your points against Gowan et al. without throwing up a false rhetorical stage set around the issues discussed that inaccurately implies you believe in things you know very well you do NOT believe.
I think I’ll now review the things you wrote in the immediate wake of Judge Bury’s November 19, 2015 ruling and see what conclusions might be drawn about your commitment to making sure your readership understands the TRUTH about what’s going on in the institutions governed by our elected officials.
(Sorry, Frances, I guess you’d consider that a non-sequitur — but it’s not. It’s directly related to Safier’s misleading rhetorical framing of this piece, where he actually uses words like “shameful” and “frightening” of people who try to interfere with journalists who, like Alexis Huicochea, report embarrassing facts about those with governance and administrative authority in our public institutions. I suppose now David will start leaping to Ms. Huicochea’s defense every time she catches hell from various parties associated with TUSD for reporting the TRUTH about what is going on with the district’s bidding processes, or playground safety issues, or members of the audit committee with family ties in the district….but if I were you I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for David to defend her right to do “what journalists are supposed to do, which is to search out and investigate relevant stories and report on them.”)
“Being balanced” How many times must we remind you that David is a columnist, not a reporter?
Columnist write opinions. If you don’t like that, don’t read David.
“This is odd David. I never read a word from you when the President chastised the national media and told them how to do their jobs ,,, ” — Rat T
Well, T Rat, this may be beyond your comprehension, but there is a world of difference between chastising the media and trying to prevent them from doing their work.
Melvin: David is a blogger who sometimes provides factual reporting, and sometimes provides a mixture of factual reporting and opinion. If you don’t think implicit and explicit claims to factuality are being made in David’s posts, you’re not reading them with proper attention.
Even if David were not a blogger but an “opinion” columnist writing in the editorial section of newspaper where there were a strict separation between “reporting” and “opinion” pieces, the fact would remain that he implies in this piece that he cares a great deal about journalists being allowed to do what they are “supposed to do, which is to search out and investigate relevant stories and report on them” and that he disapproves of elected officials who are “not speaking out against [an elected official’s attempt] to punish journalists for doing their jobs and telling the truth.”
A thorough examination of the video recordings of TUSD Board meetings for the past two years would find a number of examples of elected officials and administrators in a public institution criticizing the way the Arizona Daily Star’s journalist assigned to cover TUSD, Alexis Huicochea, is fulfilling her responsibility to “do her job and tell the truth.” I expect transcripts of her phone conversations and e-mail correspondence would provide additional interesting information on a stance vis a vis “the fourth estate” that cannot in any sense be characterized as “hands off” and / or intended to provide disinterested support for the public getting accurate information about the public institution in question. What could be observed from phone transcripts and e-mails might not be as egregious as the action of Gowan’s discussed here, but neither would it be the sort of role you would expect David to support, if you based your suppositions about his commitments to defending the role of a free press in a democracy on what he has written here.
That was my point, and I think it stands. You don’t have to like it, but if you choose to comment on it, may I ask that you make a more earnest attempt to understand what I have written before doing so?
This is the headline cut from the top of the article:
Media / News / Politics
Gowan’s Three Attempts to Suppress the Press
Posted By David Safier on Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 3:13 PM
Media/News/Politics? I am not sure how that designates this article as an opinion blog. Could you replace News with Opinion? Maybe that would be a little easier to understand.
balanced: you’re not exactly giving specific examples with Alexis Huicochea. Bring it on! I am curious. I certainly don’t trust TUSD’s string pullers any more than anyone else pulling the kind of paychecks they do…you got your platform, but worse than David, you’re only insinuating so far. Give me the DIRT. You guys whine about TUSD daily. There’s gotta be some real goods you can fire out there…
And, btw, so far TUSD hasn’t banished Huicochea from their meetings or come up with some legalese to accomplish the same. Arguing with reporters usually makes you look stupid. Kicking them out makes you look un-American.
desertrat: Is one of the effects of having people like Gowan in our legislature that our standards for elected officials’ behavior are lowered? Has he done something so awful that every other inappropriate action elected officials engage in as they relate to the press pales in comparison, and we brush them aside as not worthy of comment? If so, chalk that up as another damaging effect of his behavior: we lose the ability to notice and respond to other behaviors that need to receive push-back if our democracy is to remain healthy and the press is to fulfill its proper role.
I doubt that Safier will agree that providing detailed information about the relationship between Huicochea and TUSD is a valid use of the comment stream on this piece, but since you ask for specific examples, here are a couple of pieces Huicochea published that received negative commentary afterwards in TUSD Board meetings:
February 7, 2015
http://tucson.com/news/local/of-tusd-playgrounds-are-unsafe-audit-finds/article_0ec0e889-2187-5224-b25c-2348c914df1a.html
August 21, 2015
http://tucson.com/news/local/education/tusd-preschool-programs-nearly-in-debt/article_80215b17-f697-5149-852c-ea532f685ddf.html
Here is a link to the video archive of TUSD Board meetings:
http://www.tusd1.org/contents/govboard/gbvideo_archive.html
The best place to look for Board members’ and administrators remarks on Huicochea’s reporting will be in the Board meetings immediately following the publication dates of the articles.
There’s a lot more that could be said about the recent history of the back and forth between Huicochea and the district and various obstacles that have been put in her way as she tries to “do her job and tell the truth.” I encourage you to e-mail Huicochea and ask her about it. You might also ask her to list all the instances where she has been told something by a representative of the district that doesn’t prove true.
Bottom line is the public should not be asked to tolerate lying from the leaders of public institutions:
http://tucson.com/news/local/education/new-details-emerge-in-grijalva-kin-hiring/article_674695dc-d25c-5912-936a-c6bd531d1bbb.html
http://threesonorans.com/2014/07/23/ht-sanchez-gets-caught-multiple-lies-tape-breaks-elders-hearts-video/
http://tucson.com/news/local/columnists/steller/steller-tusd-spreads-big-lie-about-desegregation-case/article_7a3f9840-f5c4-5cdb-93f8-e3ddf7f13ff1.html
http://tucson.com/news/local/columnists/steller/steller-tusd-should-take-judge-s-hint-stop-costly-fighting/article_058a6a68-b32f-5c10-b684-3c9f71cb0a1c.html
Sadly, if we’ve lost the ability or will to tell the truth about what’s going on in our public schools — if the only way to “save” them is to tolerate lying and chastise and / or interfere with members of the public and reporters who want to discuss what is actually going on in the schools — the battle to maintain a public schooling system worthy of the public’s trust, in which people can have confidence enrolling their children, has already been lost. And that’s an issue worthy of more commentary than Safier chooses to give it, even in a context where there are people like Gowan pulling extreme, clownish, and ultimately ineffective stunts like the one reported on here.