Editorial: No Tallahassee tinkering; Freedom requires a free press

March 12 to 18 is Sunshine Week, the annual nationwide celebration of open government and access to public information. This editorial was written on behalf of Gannett newspapers throughout Florida.

How inconvenient, to have the media tell it like it is, instead of how a politician wants to sell it. But that's how it is in America, and we're all better off for it.

Florida is especially fortunate to have a strong and award-winning contingent of news media, informing the public and defending democracy, one story at a time. And like other media around the country, we've been able to cover the news aggressively because of protections guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and the caselaw that has grown from it.

But now those guarantees are under attack, from Gov. Ron DeSantis and his like-minded GOP majority in the Florida Legislature. They want to make it easier for public officials to sue journalists for defamation and have proposed measures that would hinder reporters' ability to do their jobs. These efforts must be stopped before they become law.

In a case decided 59 years ago this week, The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a public official must clear a higher bar than other citizens when seeking to prove libel. It's not enough to show that a statement published about him was false. He also must prove it was published with knowledge of or reckless disregard for its falsity. That's a key point, because it not only makes it harder for public officials to sue but allows that journalists are human and should be able to make mistakes without fear of penalty.

But now comes Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, with HB 991, to lower the bar on who’s considered a public figure under the law and on what’s considered defamation.

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“This bill is very alarming, because it threatens one of the bedrock principles of free speech in America, which is the right to criticize government officials and other powerful figures without fear of financial or other types of retribution,” said Katie Fallow, senior counsel at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, as quoted in USA Today.

Here in Florida, we're faced with an ever-more controlling administration, one that has dismissed the conservative philosophy it supposedly adheres to, that the less government intrusion into our lives, the better. Instead, in the name of fair elections, Florida has redrawn districts to weaken the impact of minority votes; in the name of free thought, the state is retooling universities into instruments of right-wing dogma; and in the name of good government, the state is exacting vengeance on Disney, that avatar of family values, for defending employees' civil rights. Often it seems the governor designs such moves not to solve any problem but to stir controversy and garner attention.

Reveling in that attention, he's now trying to turn it against us, the media that watch him with clear eyes but don't report as he'd like. Gov. DeSantis and some in the Legislature cloak themselves in the robes of victims. But, our purpose is not stenography, to record officials' words unquestioningly, that the public might take them at face value. We bring government actions into the sunshine, and press for straight answers and context. We do make mistakes but are bound by the ethics of our trade and by the U.S. Constitution, to report the best we can, without malice.

It's not unusual for politicians to blame the messenger for whatever ails them. After all, for a public image, a stab of the pen can wound as deeply as a sword, to paraphrase Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Occasional complaints about coverage come with the territory and readers can accept or dismiss their validity as they see fit.

What's more dangerous is the normalizing of such complaints within our culture, to the point where an unfettered partisan majority feels free to legislate against the media, to shut them up and shut them down, with imagined grievance as the only cause. Democracy depends on the public's informed direction but there can be none without information provided free of government restraint.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Editorial: No Tallahassee tinkering; Freedom requires a free press