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A Teen, a Reporter, and a Grand Jury Leak (Over BBQ) · Question Everything

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Last year, I was in Escambia County, Alabama, down at
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the state near the Florida border. It
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: was the end of a reporting trip. I had to
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: catch a flight home in a couple hours. I'd been
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: there a few days, looking into a situation where a
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: couple of local journalists for a tiny paper called the
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Atmore News had gotten arrested for a story they published,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and they were facing charges. It had made national news
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: for a second, then kind of gone away. What happened
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: was this. A reporter for the Atmore News, actually the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: only reporter for the Atmore News, Atmore is a town
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: of like 8,000 people, had revealed in the paper details
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: about an ongoing investigation by the county's district attorney into
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: officials at the Board of Education for the way they'd
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: spent some COVID-related funds. The DA was looking into whether
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: the schools had given that money out improperly as bonuses
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: to certain employees, and there was an impending grand jury
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: about it. Someone leaked documents anonymously to the Atmore News,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: which showed that the DA was investigating this. The reporter,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Don Fletcher, confirmed it and then ran a story about it. Apparently,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: this exposure of his investigation of a grand jury, which
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: is generally supposed to be secret, pissed off the DA
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: because he had the police show up at the newspaper's
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: office and arrest Don Fletcher. They also arrested the newspaper's
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: publisher and co-owner, Sherry Digman. Both Don and Sherry are
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: in their 70s. They were booked in jail, mug-shotted, and
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: charged with revealing grand jury secrets. Two national press advocacy groups,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press and
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the Committee to Protect Journalists, condemned the arrests. They said
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: they could find no other example in American history where
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: journalists had been arrested for something like this, that it
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: was antithetical to the First Amendment and unconstitutional. They put
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: out an open letter to the DA, urging him to
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: drop the charges. But he didn't. Journalists thrown in jail
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: for reporting. In the United States. How was this allowed
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: to happen? From Placement Theory and KCRW, I'm Brian Reed.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Stick around. I went to Alabama hoping I'd find people
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: as outraged as I was about the journalists' arrests. In
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the last few years in the U.S., we've seen more
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: and more aggressions towards journalists by law enforcement and other
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: government officials, reporters getting hassled or arrested by cops at protests,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: moves by local officials and even judges to censor papers.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: The Committee to Protect Journalists traditionally advocates for reporters in
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: much less press-friendly countries abroad. But around 2016, they hired
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: their first employee to focus on the U.S., because of
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: these incidents that are happening more frequently here. In retrospect,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: this situation in Atmore seemed like a sign of what
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: was to come. When I went down, I wanted to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: talk to the district attorney and ask what his justification
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: was for having the journalist arrested. But really, I wanted
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: to know what the talk was around town. What people
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: in Escambia County thought about what had happened in their backyard.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: What were they saying about it? What were their discussions
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: about the implications locally of jailing journalists for reporting about
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the county's school board and the DA and potentially the
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: misuse of public funds? And what I found is that
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: they weren't really talking about it. People were scared to.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I spent time at the Atmore News talking to the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: reporter Don Fletcher, who'd been jailed. By this point, he
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: was out on bond and he's old school, not the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: kind of ink slinger who's easily cowed. But because he
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: was still facing charges, he'd only talked to me on embargo.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: meaning I couldn't use anything from our interviews, until after
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: his legal proceedings were finished, Sherry Digman, his boss and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: the paper's publisher, who'd also been arrested, wouldn't do an
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: interview with me at all. So the journalists were censoring themselves.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Local officials, like Atmore's mayor, didn't want to talk to
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: me about the arrests. Seems pretty uncontroversial to me to
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: give a comment saying, jailing journalists in America is wrong,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: but I guess not in Atmore. I went to a
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: local bar, The Publican, and a woman told me she
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: had lots to say about what had happened. She had
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: family who worked in the schools. But she wouldn't be
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: telling me any of it because she was afraid people
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: in power might retaliate against her or her family.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: No comment.
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: What'd you say? No comment? It was a shame, but
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: we have no comment. No. Okay. Why not?
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Her husband went to say something to me, but she
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: put a stop to it.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Randy, no comment.
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: The bar manager.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: finally took me outside and said i had to stop
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: recording or leave when something like this happens the phrase
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: chilling effect gets thrown around to describe the kind of
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: self-silencing that can happen among reporters critics potential whistleblowers it
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: can be abstract though hard to perceive precisely because people
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: aren't talking about it but here i could see the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: chill taking hold Though I don't think it was just that,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: just fear of retaliation by the DA or someone else.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: From the interactions I did have, I think it was
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: also a distrust, or apathy at least, about journalists. People
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: were afraid to speak up, but they also didn't feel
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: sure that they wanted to speak up specifically in defense
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: of reporters. So anyway, the trip was kind of a bummer.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: And with an hour to kill before heading for my
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: flight home, I went to grab some barbecue in a
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: nearby town called Bruton. I'm sure I was looking a
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: bit melancholy as I was eating because a couple tables
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: down at this barbecue spot called Camp 31, a high
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: school-aged girl with her dad started glancing at me, maybe
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: somewhat concerned. She'd noticed my microphone peeking out of my backpack.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Are you a reporter? She asked me, nodding at my equipment,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: which I turned off. Yeah, I said. What story are
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: you working on? I told her it was about the
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: journalist's arrests over in Atmore. Had she heard about that?
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Maybe she'd heard something, she said. She was going to
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: look it up. And then she pulled out her phone,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: and I saw her Googling and reading while we all
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: finished lunch quietly. Eventually, she and her dad got up
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: to leave, but she was kind of moving slowly, lingering,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: it seemed. I said, do you want to do an interview?
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: She looked at her dad, and he gave her the
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: okay before heading to the door to give us some space. Yeah,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: she said, and sat down. Her name was Carly Tate.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: She was in high school, a junior. She's black, which
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: means obviously she's a Democrat, she told me. Though she
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: acknowledged she wasn't old enough to vote yet. She's from
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: a law enforcement family. Her dad was a corrections officer.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: They're clearly close. Carly told me she's thinking about going
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: into law enforcement, too. She was wearing a black sweatshirt
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: with the Grinch on it, even though it wasn't Christmastime.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I asked her what she'd been reading on her phone
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: after I told her what I was looking into, and
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: And she said she pulled up the open letter from
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the Committee to Protect Journalists, denouncing the Atmore journalists' arrests. Finally,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: someone willing, even eager, to talk about this. I was optimistic.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: For a second.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: So what's your takeaway? Like, what do you think about
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: it all?
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Basically everything the opposite of what that letter said. I
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: definitely think they should be placed in jail, not under.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: You think the reporters should still be in jail? Yes,
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: I do. Do you think the opposite of what the
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: Committee to Protect Journalists thinks?
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: I guess so, yeah.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: Wow, okay. And you're saying this to me, a journalist.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: I guess.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: So. Why does it make you laugh? Just what's your
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: kind of reaction here? Kind of explain it to me.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: I think more so that... They should be punished for
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: what they did. And I don't know how long they
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: were in jail, but on the website at least, it
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: didn't seem like it was very long. And so I'm
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: laughing because I'm very bad with public speaking.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: You're not. You're not.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Carly's the kind of young adult who I quickly come
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: to trust because she says exactly what she means, even
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: if sometimes through nervous laughter. It was more than I
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: could say for other people I'd met down here who
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: were too worried about repercussions to say what they really thought.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: My dad's law enforcement. He wouldn't let anything happen.
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: Okay, so tell me more. Why do you think the
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: reporters should be punished? And why do you disagree with
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: the Committee to Protect Journalists?
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: I think because they went too far. They were doing
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: their job, of course, but they went too far into
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: doing it. And there's a certain line or boundary that
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: you can cross, and they crossed it.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: What's the line in your mind?
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: That you shouldn't be putting what the grand jury says
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: on paper or out there.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: Why do you think that's bad?
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: The grand jury is in not a private courtroom, but
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: more so of a private courtroom. And I think it's
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: just something that should be not public.
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: And why? Why?
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: What do you think is the implication or the impact
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: if that becomes public?
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Um.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: I just think that the reason it shouldn't be public
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: is because it's more of a government thing and a
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: government thing for them to handle and especially I don't
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: think they've had their court date yet or anything like
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: that so I don't think it should be out until
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: they've had their court date or until everything's been set
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: in place.
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: Interesting. Okay. Wow. Okay. So I think I disagree with you.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: Can I tell you why?
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Let me just try and get my thoughts together. Or
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: let me at least say my understanding of the way
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: things work. So grand juries are confidential, and information is secret.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And if you're on a grand jury, for instance, or
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: you're a witness, I believe, it is illegal for you
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: to share what happens in a grand jury.
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: That's totally the case.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: But generally, the law says that if a reporter learns
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: about what happened... so they're not on the grand jury,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: so they're not breaking the law, but someone else does
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: and tells them, they're allowed to report it. Because it's
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: truthful information, and under the First Amendment, we're really supposed
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to have quite a broad ability to report the truth
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: to the public, basically. So that's the thinking. And there's
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: a Supreme Court case, I think it's called Bartnicki v.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Vopper or something like that, where it's not about a
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: grand jury, but it was about a.
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: I don't know all the details, but somebody.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: secretly recorded a phone conversation having to do with a
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: labor union dispute.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: This was years ago.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: And it was illegal because they broke a wiretap law.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: So the person who did the recording broke the law.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: But then somebody gave that recording to a reporter, and
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: the reporter reported about what was on the recording. And
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: they tried to go after the reporter, and it went
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: all the way to the Supreme Court, and they said
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the reporter didn't break the law. The reporter is reporting
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: truthful information to the public. even if the information was
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: gotten illegally.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: Does that make sense?
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: After you said that, I get where you're coming from now.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: I don't really.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: They shouldn't be... Well, I don't know if they should
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: be punished, but they shouldn't be, if they are, then
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: as punished as the person who did give them that information.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I saw anything about who gave
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: them that information or anything on the websites, but.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like who the source of the leak was?
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: There were two other people who were also arrested and
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: charged under the grand jury secrets law, along with the journalists.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: They were school board employees. But the DA hadn't said
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: why exactly.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: From afar, it kind of.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Looks like the DA is saying maybe they were the sources.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: But I don't know if they were on the grand jury.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: It's like not totally clear, you know.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: It definitely wasn't the journalist's fault if they got that information,
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: then put it out there. Because I understand that's y'all's
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: job to get information and then bring it to the public. Um,
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: it's more so of how they got it, and I
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: thought they got it in a way that they shouldn't
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: have got it in. Um, I didn't know there was
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: another source.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: We don't know for sure, but I've read their motion
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: to dismiss the journalists. They said they got it from
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: an anonymous tip. If you believe that, that's what they're saying.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know if I believe that
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: or not. Um.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: It sounds like your initial kind of reaction to this
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: is to be skeptical of the journalists.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: Is that right? It is. Why do you think that is?
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: I've seen a lot of bad things about journalists, mostly
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: of how they cross their boundaries of where they need
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: to go or stuff like that. I was skeptical of
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: the journalists. I kind of still am. I just think
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: they should not be punished if it was an anonymous
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: source or if it was someone else telling them.
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: And why? Why?
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: It's the law. I mean, journalists are supposed to bring
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: things to the public. I wrote an essay today in
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: English class about news. It was asking if we thought
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: free news should be available to everyone. My essay was
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: mostly about how The world or people needs to know
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: what's going on around them. And y'all do that. But
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: some of y'all go a little too far with doing it.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: And I kind of got skeptical that's what they did.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I asked Carly what kind of bad stuff she'd heard
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: about journalists. She gave me a couple of examples. One
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: her brother had told her about and one she'd seen
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: on YouTube the week before. They were kind of similar.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: where there was an active shooter or some crime going on,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and TV reporters showed up in real time as the
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: cops were responding and were kind of getting in the
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: way of them, being able to stop the bad guy.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: In one video she'd seen, she told me this happened
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: in South America, the reporters interviewed a hostage taker during
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: a standoff with police, and it derailed negotiations to free
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the hostages.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: All right, and that concerned you?
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: I like y'all reporting everything, but... I don't know, sometimes
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: with certain things, like the thing that happened with the
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Atmore thing, I got kind of scared that they were
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: the ones who did something unlawful.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: See, it's so interesting to me, and obviously I'm biased,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I'm a reporter, but the more I hear of reporters
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: doing things kind of at odds with government authorities or
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: law enforcement, the more I trust them. because that's how
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I see their role, and I trust them less when
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I see them being deferential to government and law enforcement
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: and things like that.
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: Does that make sense? And I'm curious if you think
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: the opposite.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: It definitely does make sense, because do you know those
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: auditor videos?
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: Which ones?
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Where, like, Long Island Audit is where these journalists or
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: these people with a camera basically go places that... Most
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: people would not go with a camera. And then a
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: cop comes or someone else comes like that, tells them
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: to go away. And then the auditor is like, this
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: is my right. I can stay here. My dad watches
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: a lot of those videos.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Carly and her dad watch these on YouTube. I hadn't
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: heard of Long Island Audit, but I checked the videos
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: out afterward. He's a guy named Sean Paul Reyes. He
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: calls himself a constitutional activist on his website, though in
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: some of the videos he says he's a journalist. And
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: he goes around filming on public property. public sidewalks and
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: courthouses and police stations, provoking cops and city officials into
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: telling him to leave and then recording his fights with
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: them over his First Amendment rights.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: Most of the time, the cops go for it and
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: then say that they have to go away.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: The cop says, like, you can't record here, get out
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: of here.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: And then it ends up going a little too far
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: sometimes with the cop arresting him or something, and then
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: he suits him.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed picturing a prison guard and his daughter watching
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: this vigilante go after cops. Here's a video where the
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: auditor's filming a police officer in Larchmont, New York.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: You cannot film on our property without prior approval.
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: That's interesting, because it's public property, but that's interesting.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: Subdivision 2, no filming shall be conducted on public property
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: without prior approval of the Village of Larchmont Board of Trustees.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: So you cannot film on our property without prior approval.
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: That code is completely unconstitutional.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: It is not unconstitutional. It is a village code.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Village boards are allowed to constitute their own codes. Ma'am,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: freedom of press means that there's no restrictions on it. Well, no,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: they can have their own code, but they can't have
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: a code that violates the Constitution that you took.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: An oath to, ma'am.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Take it off with the village clerk.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: Ma'am, I'm going to stick up for what I believe
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: in here. I believe in the Constitution. I believe in
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: freedom of press.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: So if you need to write me, if you need me,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: if you would like to, you can arrest me or
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: write your ticket of arrest, whatever that is.
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: I invite you to do that. Whatever you need to do.
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: I'm not moving from here, ma'am. I'm not moving from here.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: The videos are fun to watch. They have millions of views.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: The dude's definitely sanctimonious, and he's pushing these situations way
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: beyond where they need to go. Like, he doesn't drop it.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: So he's not for everybody. But he is holding cops
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to account and exposing how little some of them know
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: about First Amendment stuff. And that's the part that bothers
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Carly about these audit videos. Not the auditor's behavior, but
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the cops.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: I don't like it. I don't like how most of
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: the law enforcement that are in those videos don't actually
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: know the law.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: So it sounds like you do think that is a
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: useful thing to do because it's exposing that law enforcement
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: officers don't really understand the law, which seems like a
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: problem we should know about.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: I think that before law enforcement gets to go out
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: into the field and do whatever they need to do,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: then they should definitely get a little more training with
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: the laws and everything like that.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: What made you think of that as we're talking about journalism?
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: I'm just curious.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Because when you came in, my dad said that might
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: be an auditor.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: I see. So it was on your mind.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Carly and her dad, they weren't too far off. I'd
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: actually spent that very morning and several hours the day
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: before around the corner from here at the courthouse, desperately
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: trying to get an interview with the district attorney.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to wait for them until the end
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: of the day then in this public area. You're not
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: going to sit here and wait and pin them up.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: Why not?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: They're public employees and I'm in a public area. I'm
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: not going anywhere where I'm not supposed to.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask the DA, his name's Stephen Billy,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: why he'd ordered the arrests. of the local journalists. I
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: wanted him to explain his thinking. And I genuinely wanted
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to know if he understood the law, that journalists aren't
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: supposed to be arrested for reporting information, even if someone
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: else obtained it illegally. Was he familiar with Bartnicki v.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Vopper?
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: I'd also picked up some scuttlebutt around town about the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: real reasons he might have had for going after the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: journalists that I wanted to hear his response to. But
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: he wasn't returning my calls. So I went to the
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: courthouse right near the barbecue restaurant and tried to see
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: him at his office. And I basically found myself in
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: a Long Island audit scene before I knew what that was.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I was arguing with courthouse security and the DA's staff
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: about whether I was allowed to be there, whether I
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: could record.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: What's so weird about this? I'm a reporter.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I'd just like to talk to his receptionist or whoever
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: manages his schedule, please. Thank you.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: It's not complicated. Don't make it complicated.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not. There was a lot of back and forth.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I ended up getting them to admit that I was
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: allowed to stay in the hallway with my recorder, so
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I waited outside the door of D.A. Billy's office. I
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: could see his receptionist behind the glass door, but she
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: refused to come out and schedule an appointment with me.
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: When are they going to call me?
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: They won't come out 10 feet to talk to me?
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you what's being said.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: I agree.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: It's my job to question it.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: I'd go outside to the lawn.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: Hi, is this the DA's office?
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And call the office number from right out front.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Hi, how are you? I'm hoping to speak to Mr. Billy.
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: He's not in there?
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I called earlier to set up a meeting and they'd
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: said he was in court and I know that the
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: court is now in a recess so I was hoping.
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: To catch him. I'm at the courthouse now. They hung
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: up on me?
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Eventually, after two days of this, the DA's office manager
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: came and spoke to me face-to-face.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: He has no comment.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'd like to get that from him directly.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: Well, he is not available, and he won't be available
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: for the rest of the day.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: But they're in recess right now. That's why I came
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: by to find the time when he would be available.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: But he's not available.
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: And I've been calling for about a week.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: And they told you when you called that if he was—
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: He would call me back. No, they said if he
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: was interested in talking with you, he would call you back.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: He has no comment.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: I feel more comfortable getting that from him directly.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: It's not going to happen.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: What do you mean it's not going to happen? He's
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: got to walk out here at some point.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I'm allowed to wait. You can wait, but he has
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: no comment. I would not be getting an interview with
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: District Attorney Billy. The auditor might have stuck around and
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: tried to get handcuffed or something. Me, I sulked over
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: to Camp 31 for lunch and met Carly. I've been
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: in situations like that a lot as a reporter, where
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: you get treated like a nuisance or a criminal for
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: doing your job. And especially if you don't get the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: interview or whatever info you're after, at the end of it,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: it can be a huge downer. That's the mood I
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: was in that day at lunch. So it was at
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: least kind of nice to hear Carly say that she
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: and her dad saw value in these shenanigans. And it
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: was cool that Carly was thinking about these things, about
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: what makes a good public servant, and how a big
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: part of that means knowing the law, respecting it, and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: submitting yourself to accountability, even when it's not comfortable, and
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the way all this is supposed to be protected in
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: our system. I was still curious what she knew or
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: thought about my job. What have you learned about journalism,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the press, the rules, the First Amendment?
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: Have you learned about that stuff at all?
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: I've learned about the Constitution and the amendments. I haven't
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: really learned that much about journalism, The reason I've learned
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: so much about the amendments is because I'm trying to
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: go into law enforcement after I graduate, and so my
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: dad's taught me a little bit about that.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: And have you talked about the First Amendment?
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: The journalist one? Yeah, we have.
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: What do you know about it? What has your dad
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: told you? So this isn't in school that you've learned
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: about this stuff?
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: No, we haven't talked about the First Amendment or any
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: of the amendments since seventh grade.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: That's depressing. I know. What does your dad talk to
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: you about?
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: My dad goes for the amendments.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: My dad goes for the amendments. I love that.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: He loves his guns. He loves his guns. But he
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: also likes the First Amendment. He mostly talks about it
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: when we're watching the audit videos. He talks about how
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: he's on the auditor's side.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: As a law enforcement officer.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: As a law enforcement officer.
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: He's on the side of the guy who's entrapping law enforcement.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: Yep. He just sometimes makes jokes about me being an
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: auditor instead of law enforcement. And then he tells me
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: if I do want to become an auditor, then to
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: make sure I actually know the actual stuff and don't
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: get myself in trouble.
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: And are you considering that? Are you considering that?
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: Um, I'm not considering being an auditor. I might consider
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: being like a journalist, but not an auditor.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: Are you serious?
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: We started this conversation with you saying you wholeheartedly disagreed
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: with the Committee to Protect Journalists about something that happened
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: in your county. And now we're ending it by you
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: saying I might want to be a journalist when I
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: grow up instead of a cop.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: Because I thought that it was their fault and their
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: decision to get that information illegally. I didn't know that
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: or think that maybe it was an anonymous tip or
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: anything like that.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Maybe Carly was just being nice by coming to see
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: things from my point of view. But I felt like
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: she was listening and thinking critically about what we were
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: talking about, and that was heartening. Though I'm not going
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: to deny that I got a kick out of her
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: going from wanting to be a cop to maybe a journalist.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Both public servants in their own ways, but still a
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: pretty big swing. I'm curious if you think of those
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: two sides as, like, antagonistic. Do you?
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: I do. They're very polar opposites from each other. Law
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: enforcement really don't like journalists. Journalists don't really like the
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: government or law enforcement. It's kind of.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I guess the thing I've been thinking about, I'm curious
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: if you thought about this, because you seem to think
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: about this stuff, especially because, I don't know, I never
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: considered being law enforcement. I didn't always know I would
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: be a journalist, but I liked writing in high school.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I did work on the high school paper. But what's
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: interesting about that to me that I've been thinking about
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: is just that our system, our democratic system, does enshrine
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: and protect the this role of a journalist, which is
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: basically like an antagonist to the system, right? So the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: system has a function that it protects, which is an
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: antagonist to itself. But the system has to protect that.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: Does that make sense? I don't know. I feel like
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: this is kind of weird, right? It's like, how do
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: you get that balance?
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: I think that more so the government doesn't, they know
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: about the amendment, of course, but they don't really care
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: about journalists as much as they should.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: Do you think the DA understood.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: The whole situation where journalists are allowed to publish something,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: even a grand jury secret, for instance, even if it
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: was gotten illegally, if they didn't get it illegally? Do
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: you think the DA understood that legal distinction?
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: I want to say yes because it's the DA, but
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: I don't think so because if they did, they wouldn't
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: just arrest the journalist without really looking into.
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: It as much.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: All right, so then let's assume, and I've read a
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: quote or two from the DA about this where it
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: made me think like, yeah, he maybe doesn't get it.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, he won't talk to me, so I don't
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: know for sure. But let's assume that maybe he didn't
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: really know until, he probably knows now, because now the
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Washington Post and New York Times and CNN have been
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: calling him after this happened. Oh, yeah, this has been
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: like the New York Times and the Post. If you
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: give me your email, I'll email you the links. So
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: he probably knows now, but if he didn't know at
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the beginning, what do you think about that, that he
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: didn't understand that? reporters are allowed to do this, and
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: in fact, it's really important that they're allowed to do this.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he definitely understands now. I don't know if we
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: should honestly have a DA that doesn't know that kind
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: of stuff. Obviously, I didn't know that, but I have
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: an excuse because I'm 17, and I'm not the DA, so.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: The district attorney of Escambia County, Alabama, did end up
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: with egg on his face from this whole scandal. The
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: week I was there, he told the judge he was
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: recusing himself from the case. He said he had a
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: personal conflict with somebody involved, which begs the question why
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: he felt it was okay for him to bring the
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: charges in the first case. As a result, it got
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: kicked over to a state prosecutor, who I imagine didn't
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: want to touch it with a 10-foot pole, because upon
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: reviewing it, he promptly dropped all charges against the journalists
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: and everybody else. Now, they're all suing District Attorney Billy
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: for violating their First Amendment rights. Thanks for listening to
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: the show today. Today's episode was produced by Emily Malterre
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: and me, with help from Rebecca Lacks. It was edited
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: by executive producer Robin Simeon. I show is also made
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: by producers Sophie Casis and Zach St. Louis. Neil Drumming
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and Jen Kinney are contributing editors. Annika Robbins does our fact-checking,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: sound design by Brendan Baker, music by Matt McGinley. Our
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: partners at KCRW include Arnie Seifel, Gina Delvac, Tejal Ajmera,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Natalie Hill, and Jennifer Farrow. You know, I was actually
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: back in Alabama again just the other week. Not in Atmore,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: but in Birmingham. I was invited to give a couple
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: talks at a university there about another story I did
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: that took place in that state. My podcast, S-Town. It
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: felt great to be there and talk about John B. McLemore,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the subject of S-Town, and just see lots of people
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: from Bibb County where S-Town took place. I also got
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: to meet some local Alabama journalists I hadn't before, including
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: a reporter named John Archibald, who's pretty legendary in Alabama.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: He's won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work there, including
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: one he was given jointly with his son for an
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: investigation they did together into a small-town police department. It
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: was a special trip and a state I'm fond of,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: despite the troubles in Atmore. And I'm going to share
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: some stories and pictures from it, including a shot of
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: an S-Town-inspired tattoo I was shown on somebody's arm in
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: our newsletter. Sign up at kcrw.com slash question everything. We'll
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: see you next time.