Here at WFAE, it should come as no surprise that we think the First Amendment is kind of a big deal. That’s why we’ve created an award honoring First Amendment champions. This year’s recipient of the Ed Williams First Amendment Award is Jon Buchan.
He worked as a lawyer on behalf of media organizations in Charlotte for more than four decades, filing lawsuits to get access to public records, defending news outlets from lawsuits and arguing in favor of press freedom. He joins Morning Edition host Marshall Terry now to talk about his career and the state of press freedom.
Marshall Terry: Let’s start with the big picture. How would you rate the overall state of freedom of the press in this country, and what are some of the biggest challenges right now?
Jon Buchan: Most people don’t understand this, but more than any country in the world, the United States protects the rights of its citizens to speak their minds and to offer their opinions. I do believe, however, that it’s important for us to be conscious of the current challenges to our First Amendment rights.
These are my opinions, of course. No American administration, certainly in the last 100 years, has challenged the free speech rights of its citizens, its news media, even some of its U.S. Senators and House members as ferociously as our current administration has.
Fortunately, this country’s federal district judges have repeatedly in the last two years stood firmly and rejected numerous First Amendment attacks on news media, on law firms, and others whom President Trump says he just doesn’t like. There you go. That’s where we are.
Terry: How did you get into media law? You used to be a reporter, right?
Buchan: That’s right. I was involved in writing and journalism when I was in college. Right out of college, I met some Clemson grads interested in starting an alternative weekly newspaper in my home state of South Carolina to focus on that state’s politics and government shortfalls. We wanted to write with more insight and depth than the mainstream newspapers and stir things up a little. After about a year and a half, I joined the Charlotte Observer as its Columbia bureau reporter.
A little while later, I headed for law school at Duke, not sure whether I wanted to be a lawyer or be a journalist with some knowledge about the law. After a while, I decided to take a look at the world of practicing law, and I joined the Charlotte law firm Helms, Mulliss & Johnston. It happened that Helms, Mulliss represented the Charlotte Observer. As you might imagine, that was a track that appealed to my heart.
Terry: How have you seen changes to the law in North Carolina affect the access of the press, and the public, to public records from government agencies that we should be entitled to?
Buchan: I get asked often about whether it’s more difficult now than it was a decade or so ago to obtain government records under North Carolina statutes. It’s a good question.
I don’t think there have been major alterations in our North Carolina public record statutes. I’d like to note that in the first two decades of the years I represented newspapers and broadcasters, I think it was easier and quicker to find public bodies turn over records to those who were requesting documents. It was at a time when a newspaper or a TV station’s lawyer almost always knew the city attorney or the county attorney, and if there was a struggle over release of documents, we could quickly resolve whether the documents sought were public records or whether they were or might be records that were protected. And if we needed a judge to make a ruling, we took that route usually in an amicable fashion.
Now those times have changed. I think as computers and email traffic grew, government entities had requests for more documents than they used to have and even though the public record statute stated that records sought were to be produced, it says it to this day, as promptly as possible, government entities often short of staff would explain why the delays took weeks, sometimes months, and sometimes longer to review and produce.
It’s fair to say that those delays have often actually felt like foot dragging. We have also during the past 20 years or so been in a time when news media, and particularly newspapers, have less financial resources and have to forego lawsuits that require some commitment to legal fees. News media have not had the ready finances to push hard on every slow response to record requests.
Terry: Media organizations, newspapers in particular, may not have the same robust resources that they once had to file lawsuits, to make these requests, and fight the fights to get them released. Governments don’t seem to mind the criticism as much as they used to and maybe they just wait it out a little bit longer or just outright ignore them. Why is it important for this fight to happen, though, for transparency from our government?
Buchan: It’s important for us to know the facts that set forth what acts our legislatures are going to take, our governors are going to take, our universities are going to take, all the folks who are really part of our country and our state. The way to get that knowledge about what is really going on and who is responsible for decisions that are made, it’s critical that we all have access to the documents that folks who are making the decisions have. What we really are is we’re the watchdog.
Terry: You were a part of this fight for more than 40 years in your role in media law. Do you have any concerns about press freedom moving forward in the next 40 years?
Buchan: I have great confidence that the First Amendment is strong. As I mentioned earlier, when I have seen how strong our federal judges have stood up to the hundreds of claims in the last few years against small people and significant people, I am confident that if we all are willing to say this democracy is important to us that we will also find folks that we will vote for during elections who also will stand up for those First Amendment rights to say what we need to say and offer our opinions.