After weeks of delay, the department issued a draft of a revised policy, adding more restrictions — including attempts to completely ban video and still cameras and audio recording, and trying to control both the content of interviews and how the material gleaned in them might be used. Several restrictions sought to give prison officials the right to control the content, substance, and nature of both questions by reporters as well as answers from inmates.
The new draft has raised even more objections than the previous attempts by corrections officials to limit reporting on their agency and on their official acts. It has already been protested by the Maine Civil Liberties Union. (The Phoenix wrote a letter as well, arguing that the entire policy was still so blatantly unconstitutional that it should be scrapped and rewritten from scratch.)
More letters are in the works, from SPJ, MPA, and MAB, and the national office of SPJ.
Related:
Muzzle Awards: Collegiate Division, Laurels for a Boston media vet, Legislature moves to protect Maine journalists, More 
- Muzzle Awards: Collegiate Division
In a 1957 Supreme Court decision upholding the free-speech rights of university professors ( Sweezy v. New Hampshire ), Justice Felix Frankfurter quoted prominent South African scholars on the importance of academic freedom.
- Laurels for a Boston media vet
Congrats to Boston University journalism professor Caryl Rivers, who’ll receive the Society of Professional Journalists’ Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement.
- Legislature moves to protect Maine journalists
“The very fact that the court would grant a motion like this, when there’s no suit pending,” she says. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
- Shields up
Reporters around the state should mark two dates on their calendars.
- Startup media watchdog downplays bite
A group of New England journalists, academics, and media critics have founded a new regional organization, the New England News Forum, to support the integrity of area news outlets in an age of increased public distrust of the media.
- Cracks in the armor
A couple of cracks have opened in the state’s armor of prison secrecy.
- Sinclair may have violated state law
A union attorney is investigating allegations that Sinclair Broadcast Group failed to obey a Maine law requiring employers to pay workers within eight days of the close of a pay period.
- Press releases: Confusion and upset
The big Maine media news is that Central Maine Morning Sentinel executive editor Eric Conrad fired reporter Joel Elliott on January 26. (Disclosure: Elliott is a friend and a fellow member of the Maine Pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.)
- Maine prison bosses violate court orders
In the activist climate of an earlier era, a Maine legal-aid group brought and won three prisoner-rights lawsuits against state corrections officials.
- Fiedler on the spot
As jobs in journalism-education go, Tom Fiedler’s new gig isn’t bad. Quite the contrary.
- Striking similarities
This article originally appeared in the August 20, 1998 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
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Topics:
This Just In
, Criminal Sentencing and Punishment, Prisons, Trials, More
, Criminal Sentencing and Punishment, Prisons, Trials, Society of Professional Journalists, Civil Trials, Maine Department of Corrections, Steven Rowe, Denise Lord, Maine Association of Broadcasters, Less
