Fox 5 lock-out by Gov. Deal still reverberating
Why did Deal lock Fox 5 out of a press conference?
We would’ve expected something like this from the last guy, but we thought Nathan was better than that.
Of course, we’re talking about Gov. Deal’s bitchy move to bar a Fox 5 TV reporter from last Friday’s press conference for the signing of the immigration bill because the station had run an embarrassing story about the governor the night before.
Now, as the AJC’s Jim Galloway noted, the Atlanta Press Club has joined the fray by sending Deal a letter calling his actions “a disregard of the constitutional right of freedom of the press.”
And so it is. It’s one thing to eject an overly aggressive reporter from a presser if, say, he disrupts the proceedings — although you’d certainly want to have witnesses to the bad behavior. But to bar a reporter entrance to a more or less public event because you didn’t like recent coverage is stepping into dangerous territory.
The governor’s office explained to Fox 5 that it was spanking the station in hopes of an apology for the May 12 piece, in which Dale Russell revealed that Deal’s daughter-in-law had been paid $90,000 by his gubernatorial campaign to do fundraising. But I’m not sure what Russell — who was anointed Atlanta Journalist of the Year last year for his blockbuster 2009 interview with then-House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s ex-wife — would have to be sorry about.