Media group: Interior secretary violated reporter’s First Amendment rights

Lawyers for the Colorado Press Association say that Interior Secretary Sally Jewell violated a reporter’s First Amendment rights when her staff prevented the reporter from attending a public meeting last week. They also say Jewell’s desire to keep the press out of a meeting about sage grouse conservation with elected Colorado officials caused the Moffat County Commissioners to violate the state’s open meetings law.  “As a result of Ms. Fenner’s being barred from attending the public meeting at the American Legion Hall, we have reason to believe that your office caused the Moffat County Commissioners to be in violation of the Open Meetings Law,” attorney Steve Zansberg wrote in a letter to Jewell on Monday. Jewell’s staff later emailed another reporter at the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel saying that no members of the public was turned away. Zansberg wrote that, under law, members of the press are members of the public, so the email “is factually incorrect.” “[By] excluding Ms. Fenner from that meeting, on the sole basis that she was a reporter, her rights, and the rights of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment, were violated,” he wrote...more