By Katrina McNiven
(Reprinted with the permission of Yellowstone County News)
In a surprising move, Musselshell County Judge Randal I. Spaulding issued a ruling from the bench on Wednesday, January 6, dismissing the lawsuit brought by Jonathan McNiven, owner and publisher of the Yellowstone County News. Spaulding ruled that Roundup Public Schools were within their rights to prevent media from attending sports events at their schools due to the extraordinary circumstances surronding COVID. “There is a compelling government interest in curbing COVID and that the policy enacted was reasonably and rationally related to that,” Spaulding said in his ruling.
The lawsuit was filed by Yellowstone County News, citing an infringement on their First Amendment Rights when they were not admitted to cover a girls’ volleyball match at Roundup High School on September 10, 2020. While the issue of a ticket was mentioned in court and has been reported on by several news outlets, McNiven asserted that tickets were never brought up to him. “As a matter of fact,” he stated, “the week before when we went up there, they asked us if we had paid, and we said we hadn’t ever been asked to pay as media, and they said it was not a problem. We would have been willing to pay to get access if they had asked us to.”
Kyle Moen and Jeffery Weldon, attorneys for the Roundup School District, argued that YCN Sports and KFHW Radio could have accessed the stream from the NFHS broadcast or from the local radio station which was broadcasting the game, and, therefore, the decision by the School District to deny them entrance didn’t necessarily result in an inability to do their job. This was key to Judge Spaulding’s decision to throw the case out, as he ruled that YCN Sports had options to work around the situation and still perform their work. The attorneys for Roundup School District also explained in briefs submitted to the court that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that freedom of the press doesn’t necessarily mean freedom to access any information. McNiven rebutted that he attempted to contact those involved in granting access to the streams, and his calls were not returned until after the games in question. He also stated that his equipment is not set up with the capacity of sending out someone else’s stream.
Chad Sealey, Superintendent of Roundup School District, did offer a possible solution by suggesting that if someone from the schools were to reach out to him and request access for the media, they would work with the schools, McNiven is frustrated that it took going to court for that solution to be presented. “Not once did they offer that solution in the many communications I had with them,” McNiven declared.
“It’s not about me,” he said. “It’s about moving forward and doing our job. This is about all the media having access. For us, it’s a matter of our audience thinking, ‘Who do I go to?’ If we are not at those games, what good is our media to our listeners or readers? But beyond our access, I am concerned with what this means for other media outlets. Can schools now simply choose who is admitted and who isn’t? What if that extends beyond schools to other meetings? I think it has wide-reaching ramifications.” Despite an order from the Governor naming media as essential workers, the judge’s ruling allows for the school district to make a determination as to whether or not media would be granted admission to public events. The order, not only from the Governor of Montana but also the President of the United States, was not addressed by the judge.
“We wil wait and see what the official ruling says from the Judge and consider our options before we make a decision” in regards to an appeal, says McNiven.
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