Mediaboss Marketing

Reprinted fromMarch 4, 2000

Tim Crews, a rough and ready publisher of a small weekly in Northern California, got out of jail this week.

Tim has a natural suspicion of most governmental agencies and bureaucrats, and he keeps the pot stirred in the small communities he serves.

Hes also an ardent supporter of freedom of the press, free flow of information and openness in government, and thats what got him into jail.

Feisty, probing and suspicious he delights in exposing wrong doing in sacred places. In doing so he steps on many toes, some of them belonging to powerful people.

Tim Crews went to jail last Saturday because he challenged the judicial system on the First Amendment rights of the press. His case hinges on the right of reporters to protect their sources so that they might have continued access to information important to their readers.

In this particular case, Tim was protecting informants who told him about the theft of a gun from evidence, by a Highway Patrol officer. It wasnt the prosecution who put the squeeze on Tim, it was the defense. The officers attorney needed Tims informants to prove that the statute of limitations had expired. The judge sided with the defendant, saying that an individuals right outlined in the Sixth Amendment to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor superseded the right of a reporter to protect his sources, as might be implied in the First Amendment.

The California Shield Law for journalists doesnt apply, the court said. Tims defense, which has proven valid in other cases, was that the defendant had access to many other witnesses who could have testified to the matter.

The local court decided to pick on him anyway. The appellate courts wouldnt overturn his contempt citation. The state supreme court wouldnt stay his jail sentence.

Tim, a white haired, white bearded bear of a man, wasnt afraid to go to jail. "You guys are next," he cautioned a group of reporters who covered his trip to the pokey.

Tim will probably have plenty to write about the experience. But in taking him away from his newspaper, the Sacramento Valley Mirror, for five days, the courts could have jeopardized its publication.

The Mirror is a 12-page twice-a-week paper published in the obscure town of Artois, home of 250 residents just east of the I-5 between Willows and Orland.

In recent months he has accused the Willows school district of bullying the Valley Mirrors advertisers, reported that the mentally ill faced primitive treatment by being placed in jail, and written that an Orland school trustee was trying to oust the controversial superintendent. Last weeks paper reported that two local judges, including the one that cited him, carried concealed weapons without an appropriate permit.

Tim is not only the publisher and editor, but the lead reporter, the ad salesman and general all-around flunky. He had to leave the work to his companion, Donna Settle, and a handful of columnists, correspondents and volunteers.

Attorney fees and costs of fighting his incarceration have left him strapped. If the powers-that-be had wanted to put him out of business for the unkind things he said about them, they couldnt have found a better way.

His jailing upset the journalism community statewide. First Amendment banner bearers have rushed to Tims aid with money and support. Newspaper people feel the courts have thrown down the gauntlet on a right generally upheld by the judiciary--to be free from coercion and intimidation in reporting and commenting on the news.

One could easily agree with the courts that in criminal cases, the right of an individual to a fair trial, proclaimed by the Sixth Amendment, should have a higher priority. But there is a corollary established by the federal courts: that defendants (or prosecutors) must show serious need for the information and that other sources or witnesses cant be found. Tim argued that there were numerous witnesses who could have shed light on when the theft took place.

Local law enforcement officers claimed they knew nothing about the theft until the gun turned up last spring in the possession of a high school student, who told officers he got it from his girlfriends father, the defendant, the former highway patrolman.

Any remaining recourse apparently lies with the federal court of appeals, which has agreed to hear it in the spring but refused to stay the sentence.

Read the original:
A clash between the 1st and 6th | Rolltop Roundup | championnewspapers.com - Chino Champion