The Iowa House is wrong to deny reporter’s media credentials
Legal action is the only way to get leaders' attention
I was delighted to see that reporter Laura Belin is suing the Iowa House chief clerk over the clerk’s long-running refusal to issue Belin a press credential.
Belin runs the liberal website Bleeding Heartland. There’s no question she takes a liberal view of issues and is different than many of the mainstream journalists covering the Iowa statehouse. She is also a fine reporter, digging up stories that are often missed by traditional journalists. She’s a digger. She’s dogged. And she has an additional burden in producing balanced stories because Republicans who have a stranglehold on state government usually ignore her requests for information or comment. They try to pretend she doesn’t exist.
I’m biased in Belin’s favor on this. She is a member, as I am, of the Iowa Writers’ ColIaborative. I covered her father, the late attorney David Belin, who had been an attorney on the Warren Commission that investigated JFK’s assassination. He was always open to being interviewed and was effective in responding to conspiracy theories that cropped up over the years about JFK’s murder.
His daughter is smart and dedicated to holding powerful people in Iowa to account. I understand those powerful people do not want to deal with her. They don’t want to answer her questions. They don’t want to give her the time of day and they hope she’ll go away. She’s not going anywhere. And now she’s suing them in federal court to get access that is routinely granted to most other members of the news media.
I held one of those legislative press credentials for many years when I covered the statehouse for WHO Radio and KCCI-TV. It gave me access to the floor of the House and Senate, access to legislative leaders, and the governor’s news conferences. The statehouse is hard enough to cover without having access to people making decisions that affect the lives of all Iowans.
The House clerk, who most likely is following orders from Republican leaders, has not given particularly good reasons over the years for refusing to give Belin a credential. She’s simply ignored the request in recent years. Initially, the clerk’s office denied the credential because Belin is a “non-traditional” journalist.
The definition of a journalist has changed
That’s true. But if legislative leaders haven’t learned that journalism is changing, they haven’t been paying attention. The news media is no longer just newspapers, radio and television. The online world has exploded with all kinds of people who can be considered legitimate members of the news media.
The Iowa Supreme Court, which has always been enlightened when it comes to media coverage, re-worked its rules a few years ago to recognize that journalists may not always be from traditional outlets. Those rules for coverage of Iowa’s courts now state, “News media includes any person who regularly gathers, prepares, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports or publishes news or information about matters of public interest in any medium…”
That definition certainly includes Laura Belin. The court wisely chose a broad, inclusive definition of the news media covering court cases. It’s clear Republicans running the Iowa House want to be exclusive and keep out people they don’t like.
Online journalism includes a wide variety of political viewpoints these days. From Belin’s Bleeding Heartland and the liberal Iowa Starting Line to the conservative Iowa Standard, these journalists have every right to ask questions of those in power, to write stories from their viewpoint, and to have access to the lawmakers making critical decisions on issues like guns, reproductive rights, taxes and education. Government leaders who stick their heads in the sand and pretend the websites don’t exist would be better off giving them access and taking advantage of the opportunity to explain why they’re enacting legislation.
Legal action forces leaders to do their jobs
Laura Belin has spent the past four or five years trying everything possible to be credentialed at the statehouse. In addition to her blog, she regularly reports for an Ames radio station. She has applied repeatedly. She’s been patient. She’s tried filing complaints. Nothing has worked. So she’s doing the right thing by filing a federal lawsuit demanding her First Amendment rights.
Legal action appears to be the only way to get the attention of statehouse leaders who think they can simply ignore the news media. Last April, I wrote about Governor Reynolds settling a lawsuit filed by Belin and other journalists after Reynolds’ office refused to fulfill Freedom of Information requests from the media. The governor agreed to provide timely responses in the future and paid $175,000 to cover the journalists’ legal expenses.
It’s too bad part of the Republican playbook these days is to stiff-arm any media outlet that doesn’t do their bidding. I hope this lawsuit will be just as successful as the last one in forcing them to do their jobs.
Thank you for supporting the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative,
I certainly agree with you and hope she is able to gain access.
Jane Flagler
The important questions are who is a journalist and how do we define journalism? I’ll let Laura Belin repeat her arguments here. For several years I posted on YouTube a weekly video podcast “Democracy in Action.” I recorded house and senate debate as well as committee discussions and public hearings. All using the General Assembly (GA) cameras. And I inserted graphics, animation and still images to illustrate key issues. I never once set foot inside the Capitol. Does that make me a journalist? I could argue it does. But now in retirement, I do this as a hobby for my own consumption and enjoyment only. However, the YouTube videos are posted with a Public viewing setting so anyone can watch. Given all this, and in retirement, I do not consider myself a journalist any more although given what I describe above, I could assert that I am. But the GA would probably deny me a press credential if I were to apply. So where do we draw the line? Thanks for raising the issue.