The best journalists at America’s most prestigious newspapers agree local journalism shapes the heart of democracy.
The Scranton City News is as local as journalism gets.
Editor Stephanie Bressler and I produce investigative coverage and commentary on par with some of Pennsylvania’s best reporters and columnists, digging into stories the biggest newspapers in the state ignore. The Scranton City News exists as a free online news outlet. We make no money. We accept no advertising. We stand vulnerable and exposed to retaliation from government and business intimidators. For truly aggressive independent journalism to thrive in America people of principle in and out of journalism must fearlessly resist government censorship.
Yet Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, supposedly a staunch First Amendment freedom proponent who encourages government transparency, permits his press office staff to exclude me from receiving press releases, simple yet crucial guideposts to relevant state government information. My email inbox once bulged with press releases from Shapiro’s office. But I have not received a governor’s press office release since at least June.
I abruptly stopped receiving these press releases as I ramped up my criticism of Shapiro as he ran for reelection and ramped up his open secret of running for president of the United States. I asked in The Scranton City News if Shapiro ever used marijuana, I questioned his administration’s support for and encouragement of violent mixed martial arts fights in a Philadelphia sports arena despite Shapiro’s purported abhorrence of all violence. I challenged the governor’s sincerity in protecting immigrant children from cruel government injustice.
An unnamed press staffer emailed me that the press office had not removed or banned me but that a glitch in the Commonwealth’s email provider dropped me from the press release list. The press office staff subsequently ignored my request to fix the problem. I asked if anyone else in the Pennsylvania press corps or elsewhere had been removed from the governor’s email list. The governor’s press office staff ignored that question as well.
That means I do not know in advance when Shapiro will appear anywhere in Scranton or elsewhere in Northeastern Pennsylvania. I cannot make prior arrangements to cover the event and question the governor. Shapiro knows me and knows I ask questions he prefers not answering. As the clock ticks on the November 3rd election I am still not receiving press releases from the governor’s office.
Is Shapiro and/or his staff, including Press Secretary Rosie Lapowsky, punishing me for discomforting the governor by holding him accountable?
Attorney Paula Knudsen Burke at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is representing me and The Scranton City News in our struggle to release government information that benefits us all. Knudsen Burke recently filed a Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law (RTKL) request with the governor’s office asking for a variety of records and information that might explain the governor’s press office denial of information to The Scranton City News.
Governor’s office open records officer Marc Eisenstein asked for a 30-day extension to review Knudsen Burke’s request. When he responded after 30 days, Knudsen Burke filed an appeal because Eisenstein did not explain why I am not receiving emails or sufficiently answer Knudsen Burke’s questions.
I asked for help because none of us in the press stands strong alone. Aggressive journalism, especially fierce local journalism, matters as much today as ever. Under siege from government goons on all sides, an assertive free press must continue to define our nation and remain one of the most powerful weapons in a free society.
Thirty-six years ago as a Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania newspaper columnist I received a respected national First Amendment journalism award for my service to a free press. Luzerne County prosecutors had charged me and three others at my newspaper with felonies for doing local journalism in America. I no longer work for a rich, powerful, mainstream corporate newspaper. But my commitment to an unflinching free press remains strong.
The Scranton City News is small.
The mission is mighty.
Our unflinching fight continues.
