By David A. Lieb
Associated Press
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri prison officials are restricting inmate access to the media, citing concerns over the cost of security for onsite interviews.
A new Department of Corrections policy allows only one onsite media interview per week at each facility and also imposes new limits on the length, location and number of people involved in the interview.
A copy of the new “external communications” policy provided Tuesday to The Associated Press says it is to take effect Nov. 5. But the department issued a news release Oct. 14 saying a new media policy was taking effect immediately.
Director George Lombardi, who has led the agency since January, said the department has been inundated with interview requests from local, national and international media, although he did not have specific figures for the number of interviews or the costs associated with them. Department spokeswoman Jacqueline Lapine said the requests range from only a few to double-digits each day.
Lombardi said guards must accompany inmates for interviews, meaning either fewer officers are watching the rest of the inmates or guards from another shift must be paid overtime to fill the gap.
“I’m telling you that it was costing us a lot of money, and it was getting to be really problematic, and it was getting to be a safety issue,” Lombardi told the AP.
The department’s previous policy, adopted in February 2003, said media visits to facilities “may be” restricted to one per month. But the department apparently was not exercising that option. The new policy says no more than one media interview per week “will be” allowed at each facility, unless more are approved by the department director.
Lombardi said Missouri’s old media policy was “the most liberal policy in the whole country.”
After learning Tuesday of the new policy, the Missouri Broadcasters Association sent a memo to members alerting them that the policy “severely restricts onsite interviews” and could have a “disparate impact on television news operations” because it does not limit telephone interviews.
Broadcasters’ group president and CEO Don Hicks said there doesn’t seem to be a strong justification for the policy. He said it could diminish the news available to the public by making reporters wait unreasonably long for interviews.
“Every news event has a shelf life, so to speak, has an expiration date,” Hicks said. “If you prevent the media from getting to critical points about that story, that opportunity to get that information out to the public in a timely fashion is harmed.”
The new policy also requires media interviews to occur between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays in the prison visiting room; limits media crews to four people; limits interviews to one hour; and requires media to get prior approval from the department before bringing in equipment such as cameras and recorders.