Politics & Government

Journalists Press Their Cases Against Police Over Media Passes, Access

La Jolla High alum Caitlin Rother and others air complaints against the San Diego Police Department.

Speaking to a sympathetic audience, a freelance photojournalist and a true-crime author aired their complaints Monday night over being denied access to certain news events and police press conferences.

La Jolla High School alumnus Caitlin Rother and Ramona’s James “J.C.” Playford  joined U-T San Diego reporter Kristina Davis on a panel to discuss press-credentialing by the San Diego Police Department.

Playford, a freelancer facing an April 15 deadline to file an amended complaint in a lawsuit against local police agencies, told a forum of the local Society of Professional Journalists that he didn’t need a press pass issued by the SDPD because he’s an American.

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“That’s my credential,” Playford said at KPBS studios at San Diego State University. “I’m a citizen of the United States of America.”

But Rother, the author of a series of true-crime books including Lost Girls on the Chelsea King and Amber Dubois murder cases, told the 30-member audience: “I cannot do my main job without a [San Diego police] press credential.”

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Despite having interviewed Sheriff Bill Gore and key players in the King/Dubois case, she said she couldn’t witness the sentencing of confessed killer John Gardner firsthand.

Nor could she attend Gore’s press conference announcing the findings of suicide in the Coronado case of Rebecca Zahau, found hanged in the Spreckels mansion.

“I was not allowed to have the same access to information that people who were working reporters … have,” said Rother, who said she held many press credentials during her Union-Tribune reporter days.

Davis, who has been covering crime and other breaking news for the U-T for seven years, said: “I think they should do away with press passes all together.”

Forum moderator Matthew T. Hall of U-T San Diego, secretary of the local SPJ chapter, said he invited Police Chief William Lansdowne or a police representative to appear on the panel, but the chief had a “prior commitment” and others weren’t available.

Dorian Hargrove of the San Diego Reader, who also has been denied a police credential, was ill and replaced on the panel by Playford, Hall said.

“I tried hard to get the Police Department here,” Hall said after the 80-minute event—where a photo of Lansdowne was posted up front after first occupying an empty chair.

Hall also sought without success police Lt. Gary Hassen, depicted as the lone arbiter of who qualified for an SDPD press credential—the only media badge recognized by other county law enforcement agencies.

Without a police representative, the forum devolved into a gripefest as members of the audience—including Playford’s employer and co-plaintiff—shared stories of being denied access to various news scenes.

Edward Peruta—a Connecticut resident and part-time San Diegan—stood up several times from the front row to challenge moderator Hall or correct panel members.

Peruta’s small business—American News and Information Services—employs Playford and is a party to the September 2012 lawsuit recently dismissed by federal Judge Irma Gonzalez in San Diego. 

In 2010, Peruta, now 65, sued San Diego County after he was denied a license to carry a concealed weapon. He lost that case, but has appealed to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeal.

Playford, the subject of a recent Associated Press article on credential issues, has alleged violations of constitutional rights to a free press and against illegal search and seizure.

“Playford is often among the first to arrive on fast-breaking stories, pitching his work to news organizations,” the AP reported last month. “Playford, a house painter from suburban Ramona who turned to journalism in 2007, has clashed repeatedly with law enforcement officers and had equipment seized after police refused to renew his credential in 2010.”

The AP also noted that a San Diego jury convicted him a year ago “of a misdemeanor charge of resisting an officer at the scene of a bomb threat at an office of U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa. Prosecutors say he ignored officers’ orders to move. They knocked a cell phone out of his hand, fearing it was a remote detonator, and he cursed them as he was taken into custody.”

Hall, a 12-year U-T staffer and now public engagement editor, noted that the California Highway Patrol complained as long ago as 2004 that credentials were a “management nightmare of who’s in, who’s out” with passes sometimes used to get holders into baseball games.

The CHP dropped its credential program, he said, as did the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in December after noting advancements in digital media.

“[With] the proliferation of bloggers, podcasters and freelancers, it has become challenging to determine who shall receive a press pass,” Hall quoted that agency as saying.

But according to a San Diego City Beat report, the San Diego Police Department had issued 436 press credentials as of mid-September, including some to people who don’t “demonstrate a need to cross police and/or fire lines on a regular basis” as stipulated.

The question of what defines a journalist was broached by the audience and parried by the panel, with U-T reporter Davis noting amid laughter that she once saw someone declare: “I am a journalist. I’m on Facebook.”

In any case, Playford, who turns 50 in June, said his lawyer, Rachel Baird, would “soon” file an amended complaint in federal court. [See original complaint attached as PDF.]

“I have a strange feeling the judge gave us a nice little roadmap on where to go with this,” Playford told Patch.

His ultimate goal?

“I want the press credential [process] removed,” he said. “I want justice to finally be served, and I want the FBI and the state Attorney General’s Office to get off their asses and do what they need to do. … It’s a federal crime what [the police and Sheriff’s Department] are doing.”

Outside KPBS, before carrying off a carton of water bottles, Hall shared a note he received from an audience member who left the forum in dismay.

It was “too anti-police,” the note said.


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