A Nashville-based First Amendment advocate is calling into question a recent tightening on media access policies within the Tennessee Department of Corrections. As well he should.
This reporter found — after sending requests for inmate interviews — that the TDOC media access policy changed as of July 1 of this year.
What exactly changed, you might ask?
Well, the department has almost entirely stricken the previous policy and added an amendment to the end that reads as follows:
PROVISION OF INFORMATION AND ACCESS TO THE MEDIA AND PUBLIC POLICY CHANGE NOTICE 15-20 INSTRUCTIONS:Please add the following new subsection to Section VI.(B) to read as follows:
“11. Live broadcasts (television, radio, telephone, or other electronic or communicative method) from inside the perimeter of an institution are not permitted without prior written authorization from the Commissioner or his designee.”
Please change Section VI.(C) in its entirety to read as follows and delete subsections 1-14: “C. Interviews-Incarcerated Offender:
1. Except as provided in subsection (2) below, face to face news media interviews with offenders are not permitted. Telephone interviews with media on institutional phone lines will not be permitted. Inmates who wish to place the names an numbers of individual media representatives on their ITS calling lists may do so in accordance with Policy #503.08. Inmates may correspond in writing with media representatives in accordance with Policy #507.02.
2. News media members may request an interview with an unspecified inmate on a specific department program or topic. If deemed appropriate the Communications Director will attempt to provide inmates appropriate for interview on such programs or topics.
Boiled down, this means media can still send and receive snail mail from inmates, and they can still request interviews with inmates about programming within the prisons.
What’s different is that media can no longer request person-to-person interviews with specific inmates without either direct consent from Commissioner Derrick Schofield or allowing TDOC to choose the inmate for them.
In effect, the policy basically “lacks the free exchange that enriches journalism,” said Ken Paulson, president of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University.
Paulson, who is also the dean of MTSU’s College of Media and Entertainment, said the tightening of media access within TDOC is “troubling and certainly not congruent with the spirit of the First Amendment.”
"One of the very best sources about what's happening in prisons is from those who are behind bars, and obviously sometimes those prisoners have agendas of their own, but the ability for interviews with them from the free press is pretty critical," Paulson said. "It does appear that the latest changes are made to limit scrutiny and give us less insight."
Especially amid current staffing shortages and overcrowding in Tennessee's prisons, more light is needed on the system, not less.
So why all the changes?
“I revised the policy to increase the safety and security of our institutions,” said Neysa Taylor, TDOC’s director of communications. She goes on to say Schofield approved the policy after she wrote it.
When pushed a bit further, Taylor said the policy wasn't in response to incidents with media in the prison system, but rather a proactive and preventative measure she felt necessary.
“Safety and security of our facilities is at the core of our mission,” Taylor wrote in an email to the Scene. “While it is great to be responsive after an incident, I feel that it is better to be proactive and reduce any threats to our department before our security is compromised.”
Supreme Court decisions have more often than not sided with prison officials in the name of safety and security, Paulson said. “In general terms, corrections officials have extraordinary latitude in limiting the free expression rights of prisoners," he explained. "That doesn’t make it right, but it’s just the reality.”
