Two Sun journalists target of a ban

Baltimore Sun ^ | November 20, 2004 | Stephen Kiehl

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The Ehrlich administration has taken the unusual step of banning all state officials from speaking with two Sun journalists, who they say are "failing to objectively report" on state issues.

The governor's press office sent a memo Thursday to all state public information officers and to the governor's staff ordering them to not speak with State House Bureau Chief David Nitkin or columnist Michael Olesker.

"Do not return calls or comply with any requests," press secretary Shareese N. DeLeaver wrote in the memo. The ban is in effect "until further notice."

"There's no hiding the fact of The Sun's distaste for the results of this past election," said Greg Massoni, also a press secretary to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican. "And they are perfectly entitled to that opinion. We have a grave problem with their editorial page taking over the news division, and apparently that's what's happened."

Sun Editor Timothy A. Franklin, the top newsroom executive, called such a suggestion "ridiculous on its face." He said, "The editorial board and the newsroom are distinctly separate departments of the company, on separate floors of the building. We don't know what they're going to write about, and they don't know what we're going to write about. And that's as it should be."

Franklin said he offered Thursday to meet with Ehrlich and his press officers to go over specific complaints they have with Sun reporting, but that offer was turned down. He said Nitkin would continue to cover the State House, even though the ban will make his job more difficult.

[Happygal]

This is a bad move by the Governor IMO.

If you don't like the press you get...you have a right to reply.

BANNING freedom of speech is quite another.

[McGavin999]

I would love to see more of this. I think pressers who distort their reporting should have their press credentials pulled.

Corporate America needs to wake up. Their ad money is financing the very people who are spreading anti-Americanism all over the world. If corporate America suffers as a result of this prejudice, it's their own fault.

[NoBullZone]

While respecting your opinion ...
Ehrlich is certainly not banning freedom of speech - there is no bar to the Baltimore Sun spewing its biased, racist, arrogant coverage of the governor and his lieutenant. He has just stepped up and said "I will not continue to provide you with the ammunition to spew your liberal hate." Sounds responsible to me -- if the Bush administration had any cujones, they would withdraw Helen Thomas' press credentials (her diatribe was "The worst President in American History") and David Gregory, who never passes up a chance to take a cheap shot at W.