The Press: The Public Be Damned

In their fight for the news, reporters have to battle a growing attitude on the part of state and local officers that public business is none of the public’s business (TIME, May 5 et seq.). Last week North Carolina newsmen lost a round. When a vital Appropriations subcommittee, disregarding state law, denied them access to its budget hearings, capital reporters staged a sitdown in the hearing room.

To dodge the reporters, the stymied committee rented a hotel room, met secretly there. Reporters heard about it, crowded outside the locked door. Committee Co-Chairman J. William Copeland stepped out to offer a compromise he would let the newsmen in if they agreed not to report anything the committee wanted off-the-record. The reporters flatly rejected the proposal, which could trap them into being parties to news suppression. Next day, by voice vote, the North Carolina legislature rammed through a law legalizing closed appropriations-committee hearings. Argued State Representative Oscar G. Barker, onetime Durham Herald staffer: “The law will set democracy back not less than 100 years in North Carolina.” Said the Raleigh News & Observer: “This law is designed to serve the darkness. It should have been entitled: An Act to Reiterate the Doctrine ‘The Public Be Damned.’ “