Is this not a case of a violation of freedom of the press?

At least the reporter wasn’t locked in jail for 14 years for offending God the supreme leader. Western reporters have it relatively easy.

It’s pretty obvious why the guy was fired, but an employer in Louisianna or many other states can fire someone and not have to give reason—which is what happened here. The employer didn’t give reason, because no law says they must, and therefore the terminated reporter has no case—on the surface.

If the reporter wants to spend a lot of money and build a civil case based on circumstantial evidence, fine, but he should be prepared to mortgage his home in the process and then still lose. Sometimes, a civil rights law group might take up the case pro bono if they can see any way to win, but that hasn’t happened for Mr. Meyers.

This happens a lot. It’s basically a management/employee disagreement and management makes the rules. In this case, the managing editor decided that it would be impractical to the tune of $275,000 advertizing dollars to piss Mr. Vitter off. Management was well withing their rights, it seems. Reporters are told by their managing editors to bury stories all the time—it doesn’t mean they won’t ever get published, it just means that the editorial staff doesn’t want it at that time.

The highest profile case of this kind in recent years was FOX vs Jon Wilson, where Wilson was told by FOX management to bury a story about hormones in cow’s milk at a large Florida dairy. This is the case that is often interpreted as the Supreme Court making it legal for FOX to fabricate or lie in order to sell the news to the public.

It didn’t violate the freedom of the press, because the station didn’t back up the reporter.

To paraphrase a Jack Nicholson movie, ” Forget about it Keith, it’s Louisiana.”

The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law limiting the freedom of press.” In order for this question to apply, the reporter must have been violating a state law that would now go through the court to determine its constitutionality. So, this question is not relevant.
What’s happening here is someone stepped outside of the box, and paid the price for it. He made the silly mistake of messing with someone who has money. A possible legal question at hand is whether or not the reason for being fired violates state employment laws.

Journalists shouldn’t be able to question ‘everything’. If the journalist had been asking a senator about his sexual history with no justification, that would not be acceptable. If he was asking because the information had some public interest, it could be fair enough.

For instance, we had a senator here who had visited a gay sex sauna. He was married, he used his government car to get there and he was photographed by journalists who published the story. However, he was not working at the time, the legislation allowed him to use his car for private business, and he had not made a stand on any gay or straight issues that would justify publishing news about his sexual behaviour. There was no public interest in this story.

In the case you cite, the senator has taken an anti-gay stance while visiting prostitutes himself. That puts his behaviour in the realm of public interest. He is a hypocrit. The journalists covering that story were showing the public the hypocrisy of this man’s actions. I can’t speak for what happens in Louisianna, or in the US, and freedom of the press is not enshrined in our legislation or constitution, rather it is upheld through convention. However, from an ethical perspective and in my opinion based on the information you’ve provided, the journalist was treated unfairly.

Being fired is generally done by the company who employs someone, so it has nothing directly to do with the government.

Yes. Do not be fooled by all the pointless legalese trying to rationalise it.

Firing a reporter has no correlation to freedom of the press. But this is a country that uses its freedom of the press to do really useless things.

It’s not a violation of freedom of the press in my opinion. The employer fired him, for whatever reason, it sounds like we can’t be sure exactly why. If the reporter was jailed for asking the question then that would be a violation of freedom of the press.

I think I might change my answer slightly. I was being a bit flippant. This isn’t a violation of freedom of the press, but it may be evidence of the systemic suppression of a free press. Investigative reporting has become rare and extremely hazardous. The bation of Journalism has lost its fortitude. The press is an industry and that industry is now owned by corporations that push their own agendas. So, to see where the free press became the owned and manipulated press, just follow the money. I’m afraid that if I owned a news agency, it would be called ‘The Daily Cynic’.

@cazzie Great name for a news agency. It’s so true about the money. Although, I’m working for a friend who owns a media company and she is one of the good ones. Believes in reporting unbiased news. Good journalists are still out there, but the big media outlets overwhelm the air waves, print, and even the internet. My friend’s company is hired to do stories for other media outlets also, so those outlets have the final say on what gets published in their papers.