CJR.org EXCLUSIVE
Q & A with Mark Silverman, Detroit News
In January 2002, the Detroit News filed a lawsuit in federal court in Michigan to obtain access to the Rabih Haddad deportation proceedings. Haddad, a Lebanese citizen, was arrested in 2001 for violating his tourist visa. He was also suspected of funneling money to al Qaeda through an Islamic charity he had helped to found. As a prominent member of the Detroit-area Arab community, Haddad's story was of great interest to the Detroit News. But the Creppy Memorandum issued four months previously barred the newspaper-and all newspapers-from attending Haddad's deportation hearing (see "The I.N.S. Test") . Mark Silverman, editor and publisher of the Detroit News, talks about why his paper filed suit to be there.
Laurie Kelliher: How seriously did the Detroit News weigh
its responsibility to litigate for access to the Rabih Haddad
deportation hearing?
Mark Silverman: I don't want to be glib about this but there are people who are saying that the terrorists won because we're sacrificing our Constitution in order to fight them. I don't know if I'd go quite that far but that is the direction our brains are heading. Deciding to raise our hands on this particular case is really an outgrowth of discussions we've had at the Detroit News about what we think are some very fundamental threats to basic American liberties. So it would be disingenuous for us to write about this in our editorial pages if we didn't then weigh in on the Haddad case and other like things in courtrooms in Michigan.
How have you been covering these issues in your editorial
pages?
This past summer we ran five editorials and a number of op-ed pieces looking at the whole issue of privacy rights which, in our view, are being assaulted in the name of the fight against terrorism. Last month we did a four-day series of editorials on the loss of judicial freedoms ranging from prosecutorial abuses that infringe on the right of habeas corpus to open courtrooms and trial proceedings. In November we will do a third set of editorials on public access, the chipping away of FOI laws, and the closing of government to public view.
Lucy Dalglish, of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the
Press, says one of her concerns is that newspapers don't generally
cover press access and government secrecy issues as a beat.
Our approach has been to tackle issues of access and secrecy
as they come up on specific beats, rather than devote a person
to all aspects of the subject. Realistically, it would be difficult
from a staffing standpoint to create a stand-alone beat on that.
But it's important for all reporters and assigning editors to
be attuned to the two concerns, and to address them when they
arise on specific beats.
Did your paper have any concerns about confronting the current
administration or concerns about how the public would view your
actions?
The Detroit News editorial page is historically a conservative editorial page with libertarian leanings. This is an editorial page that endorsed George Bush. But at the same time it's an editorial page that believes the Bill of Rights should not be shredded in the name of fighting a battle. I think that while there always needs to be a separation between news and editorial, the newspaper needs to back up its editorial page stances with corporate actions and, in this case, the Detroit News as a company needed to weigh in in court. Or else what right did we have to say that stuff in the editorial page?
Do you think the media in general has been reticent to confront
the administration on some of these issues?
I think the message the administration has put out — on its own and through some streams of media — is that what is being done is the minimum needed to defend the country against terrorism and I think that, in general, the media have been lax in picking apart whether that's true and asking the really important question, which is, at what cost?
Do the financial implications of litigating deter newspapers
from bringing more suits over government access issues?
You can actually rationalize it from a good business standpoint if you want to go that way. I mean if all of a sudden you start losing certain rights of access, the media become less essential to people; fewer people will read our newspaper and we'll have declining eyeballs. So if I wanted to be crass about it and rationalize it that way I could.
Do you think the media have generally done a good job of challenging
the government over access issues since 9/11?
My overall impression is that the industry has been somewhat timid, although there have been many incidences where people have had the opportunity to stand up for something and have done it. I think we need to take care to notice the little events out there that can build into trends and set precedents. And we need to make sure that we don't allow government to become secret, or society to be placed on auto-pilot.
Do you think that after 9/11 the press was influenced by the
public's willingness to give up some civil liberties in the fight
against terrorism?
The press as an institution has a huge problem right now. A month doesn't go by when somebody doesn't come out with a survey that shows that public thinks press freedoms go too far. And that's a reality we have to deal with. On a grass roots level, getting people to understand the value of a free press is something that newspapers and Web sites and television stations have to do on their own, in little ways, every day, by reporting on the good and the bad in their communities. And you make a good case for press freedom and open government whenever you run a story that tells somebody. "Here's something wrong and here's how you can fix it."
Read The
I.N.S. Test, in Spotlight
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