Schwarzenegger Vetoes Reporter Access to Prisons

By: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who ran on a platform of open government, Thursday vetoed legislation that would have restored to journalists the right of routine access to state prisons.

The measure would have overturned a series of restrictions on reporter access to prisoners imposed in 1996 as an "emergency measure" by then-Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, and subsequently embraced by his Democratic successor, Gray Davis. Reporters cannot schedule face-to-face interviews unless they happen upon a prisoner during guided tours or the prisoner agrees to add the journalist to his official visitors list. The process often delays visits for months, journalists complain, and forces a prisoner to make a choice between seeing friends and family or a reporter.

Further, journalists are not permitted to take any "tools of their trade" into an interview with a California prisoner. In addition to banning cameras and tape recorders, the restriction has been interpreted to include the personal pens, pencils, and notebooks of print journalists.

Senate Bill 1164 was strongly supported by the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the California First Amendment Coalition. Law enforcement officials, including Schwarzenegger's corrections secretary, Roderick Hickman, vehemently opposed the bill, which it said would "glamorize" prisoners.

The bill was passed at a time when allegations of brutality in state prisons have come to light. Proponents of the legislation hoped Schwarzenegger would sign the bill into law not only because of his strong open-government stance but also because those scandals preceded his administration. Previous prison access legislation was vetoed once by Wilson and twice by Davis, who each had prison scandals during their watches.

But in his veto message to the California State Senate, Schwarzenegger said the current California Department of Corrections policy "strikes the important balance between media access and appropriate correctional policies that must take into account the orderly administration of prisons." The reporting on the scandals proved the process was working, he argued.

Schwarzenegger said journalists already enjoy "wide ranging access to both prisons and inmates" under the current policies.

The former bodybuilder and Hollywood star ,who announced his run for governor on "The Tonight Show," also indicated he agrees that media coverage creates celebrities of criminals. "Finally, it is important to avoid treating inmates as celebrities," he said. "Activities that would
glamorize criminals at the expense of victims and the general public are unacceptable."