Mississippi Today took an extraordinary step this afternoon in asking the state Supreme Court to overturn a lower court order that threatens the constitutional rights and privacy of journalists and every Mississippi citizen.
Given this matter of grave constitutional concern and the critical decision our state’s highest court must soon make, I want to be transparent with you, our reader, about what’s going on and what’s at stake.
In July 2023, former Gov. Phil Bryant sued our newsroom and our CEO Mary Margaret White, arguing that we defamed him in three separate characterizations of our 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Backchannel” investigation. We continue to confidently defend ourselves against a lawsuit we believe has no legal basis.
Bryant’s lawsuit does not challenge a single word of our original “Backchannel” investigation, which revealed for the first time the extent of the role the former governor and others played in the Mississippi welfare scandal. We have not let this lawsuit intimidate us, and we continue to closely cover the ongoing investigations into the misspending — including accusations made by key defendants that Bryant was directly involved. In May of this year, Bryant added me and Mississippi Today investigative reporter Anna Wolfe as defendants, along with five of Anna’s more recent news articles, to his baseless lawsuit.
Bryant has attempted to use this lawsuit as a vehicle to go back in time and obtain unconditional access to all of our internal documents, including notes and interviews with sources regarding “The Backchannel” — despite never raising questions about the original investigation and long missing deadlines to challenge it in court.
Given this glaring overstep and our steadfast effort to protect our journalists and our sources, we declined to turn over that information, citing a First Amendment protection called “reporter’s privilege.” Reporter’s privilege, which is recognized by 40 states based on numerous legal interpretations of the United States Constitution, serves as a basis of protection and privacy for journalists and the sources who share important information with the press.
But last month, the court issued an order that because Mississippi’s appellate courts have never recognized reporter’s privilege, our citation of the privilege did not necessarily stand as valid reason to withhold our information from the plaintiff. The order issued on May 20 gave us a deadline of today, June 6, to turn over any information in our possession related to potential confidential sources.
We believe this court order is unconstitutional, so we have no choice but to appeal it to the Mississippi Supreme Court. We have also asked both the circuit judge and the Supreme Court to stay the troubling order while the high court considers taking up our appeal.
LINK: Mississippi Today’s petition for interlocutory appeal with Supreme Court
With our appeal, the stakes are incredibly high: The Supreme Court could guarantee these critical rights for the first time in our state’s history, or it could establish a dangerous precedent for Mississippi journalists and the public at large by tossing aside an essential First Amendment protection.
We at Mississippi Today take seriously our job as journalists to unveil government corruption and wrongdoing, and we’ve done it well in a state that has too little investigative reporting. We are proud to carry on the long legacy of journalists who have so often served as the only hope for true justice among Mississippians who are cheated, overlooked or ignored.
Every single Mississippi citizen benefits from these vital constitutional protections. In a state with little government accountability, Mississippians routinely learn about the actions of their public officials only because of journalism like ours. Eroding these protections could have a detrimental impact on how effectively journalists here can uncover potential wrongdoing. Worse, it would have a chilling effect on whistleblowers and other brave sources who often come forward to journalists because they have no other way to hold power to account.
If the lower court’s order is upheld, every Mississippian would stand to lose a fuller understanding of how some government leaders truly operate when their doors are closed and they think no one is watching.
It’s important to note that journalists, even in the 40 states that recognize the reporter’s privilege, do not have unlimited, blanket protection from having to turn over sensitive materials. But in those states — and we hope in Mississippi very soon — there is an appropriately high threshold that a plaintiff in a defamation suit must first reach before journalists are compelled to turn over their documents and notes.
Under the reporter’s privilege, a plaintiff in a defamation suit should first prove that what a journalist reported was false, defamatory and based upon unreliable sources before documents are turned over to anyone. Those standards have not been met in the 13 months since Bryant first threatened this lawsuit against Mississippi Today.
There has been no evidence presented to demonstrate our reporting was false because it wasn’t. There has been no evidence presented that our reporting was defamatory because it wasn’t. There has been no evidence presented that we relied on an unreliable source because we didn’t. For those reasons, we should not be compelled to turn over privileged information.
We stand by every word of our reporting, and we are confident we will prevail in our defense. Toward that end, we are obligated to appeal this order not only to protect ourselves and a free press, but also to uphold the rights guaranteed to all Mississippians by the United States Constitution.
In the meantime, please know that Mississippi Today will never stop investigating government corruption and working to provide accountability. We will never be afraid to reveal how powerful leaders truly serve their constituents. And we will always stand up for Mississippi journalists and sources who come forward to us with information the public needs to know.
If you have anything you’d like to share, my email inbox is open. If you’d prefer to communicate via encrypted channels, you can find our contact information by clicking this link. As ever, we appreciate your support, and we are honored to serve you with the quality journalism you’ve come to expect from Mississippi Today.
The post Editor’s note: A judge ordered us to turn over privileged documents. We’re appealing to the Mississippi Supreme Court. appeared first on Mississippi Today.