Sioux Falls Argus Leader, SD
12-18-06
Printing names is part of upholding First Amendment
By Jeff Martin
When I began doing the Lord's work as a young news reporter, my first major project seemed as if it was assigned to me directly from hell.
The assignment:
1. Spend three full days in the basement of the Story County Courthouse, poring over data from hundreds of concealed weapon permits.
2. Type the names into a first-generation Tandy word processor, the very heavy model with a one-inch-high screen that displayed only 10 words at a time (this was the early 1990s).
3. Make many enemies by calling these folks to tell them you intend to print their names in a list of people who have permits to carry guns.
Nothing, including this assignment, was easy at my first daily newspaper job. That's because this newspaper in the middle of Iowa was as serious about the First Amendment as any paper, anywhere.
It was led by Mike Gartner, a bulldog of a newsman who used to decide which stories went on Page One of the Wall Street Journal. He also ran NBC News for a time.
After many big-time journalism jobs out east, Gartner decided to return to his home state of Iowa and edit a newspaper like no other in the country.
We printed things no one else dared to print, and this week, that included gun permits. Lucky for me.
After my story ran - accompanied by a list of more than 300 central Iowans who could legally carry a concealed gun - it evoked quite a reaction.
Gartner and his managing editor, another tenacious journalist named Flansburg, figured they'd get more work out of me if I didn't spend all my time answering the angry phone calls that ensued.
So they clipped the list of gun permit holders from the newspaper, taped it to a desk in the front office upstairs and directed all calls to that guy.
I don't recall who that unfortunate soul was - it may have been the publisher - but I was just glad it was him and not me.
(The story I heard was that he started with that list of more than 300 names and crossed off each one as they called to complain about being in the paper. After a week or so, there were only five names that hadn't been crossed off).
In the early 1990s, the one thing Mike Gartner and his newspaper didn't have was a Pulitzer Prize (but those of us who worked for him figured he could win one if he wanted to).
A few years later, he did win a Pulitzer for a remarkable series of editorials he wrote for the Daily Tribune of Ames, one of the smallest papers to win journalism's highest honor.
So why did we print those gun permits then, just as the Argus Leader is doing now?
To refresh my memory, I dug through the files in my guest room and found some sheets of paper I've saved for the past 15 years. They are staff notes Gartner wrote to those of us who were fortunate enough to learn journalism in the newsroom on Fifth Street in downtown Ames:
Every day, it seems, Jim or Jayne or I take a call from someone who wants something kept out of the newspaper. It's usually a name. ...
Each time, we listen. Each time, we refuse.
Every caller is sincere. Every caller thinks he or she has a unique reason for us to drop a name or an address or a fact. Many callers say that if we don't do that, some harm will result.
Yet we try to print everything. Here's why:
We print the names of people in the news because that's our business. Our pact with readers is that we'll tell them what is going on in Ames and Story County. That means we'll tell them not only what's happening at the city council and at Iowa State University, but also who is arrested, who is having babies, who is selling his house (and for how much), who has died (and of what cause). People expect that from us.
If we leave out just one name, just one fact, we have failed in our mission and damaged our credibility.
That's why we printed those gun permits in Iowa.
It's the kind of journalism that goes to the heart of the First Amendment.
It was then, and it is now.