First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
First, I want to apologize for getting something wrong yesterday. I reported that the City Council had voted unanimously in favor of the Fife-Kaplan proposal to strip the Oakland Police Department’s Public Information Office (PIO) of $493,000. In reality, they voted to postpone a final decision until the Council’s Feb. 1 meeting.
I don’t like getting things wrong. But in this case, it’s a blessing. The public now has until then to understand this evil plan. Hopefully, we’ll get a lot of people to call in to the Council and tell them, DON’T DO THIS!
Let me explain.
What the City Council, or some people on it, are trying to do to the PIO is pernicious, unConstitutional and unAmerican.. A free press in America is something our Constitution has enshrined since the earliest days of the Republic. The Founders recognized, through their authorship of the First Amendment, that a democracy cannot exist without a free press. The reasons why are obvious: in a democracy such as ours, the people have the right to vote for individuals to represent them in the halls of the various legislatures, including the Oakland City Council and the U.S. Congress. Without that right, America would be, not a Republic or a democracy, but an authoritarian, one-party state, ruled by the dictates of whatever interest group happens to be in power. People cannot vote intelligently unless they understand what the issues are, and how their representatives feel about those issues. Without this vital information, voting would be a sham.
I have been a journalist for 30 years. Journalism is in my blood, my DNA. Journalism is fundamentally nothing more than education—it educates the public to the details of the things that matter to them. But journalists can’t uncover all the relevant information by themselves. They can’t know what goes on in every meeting, behind every closed door, in every City Council hearing or police investigation. Because of this inherent limitation, journalists depend upon the assistance of others, to help them know what’s going on, so they in turn can inform the public. Journalists use a variety of sources and means in order to discern true information. One of those is through the press office, or public information office, or communication office—call it what you will—of large bureaucracies like the Oakland Police Department. This is not to say that we journalists take at their word whatever these spokespersons tell us. We listen with skepticism, we ask follow-up questions, we use common sense. But for the most part, good spokespersons—good representatives of these bureaucracies—understand that reporters need honest information, and they provide it. Woe to any spokesperson who intentionally misleads the press; she will be found out and never again trusted, to the great detriment of the department she works for.
In the case of the PIO of the OPD, all I can say is that they are responsible professionals who have been helpful in answering questions, in holding press conferences, in returning messages that enable us to do our jobs, whether it’s the SF Chronicle or Oaklandside or the Mercury News or KTVU-TV or this little blog. We depend on the PIO for the information we then pass on to you.
The effort on the part of certain members of the City Council to reduce the PIO by two-thirds is a direct attack on the First Amendment. It’s an attack upon me and all journalists who report on Oakland, and it’s an attack upon you, the citizens of Oakland, who have the right to know what’s happening in OPD and what those with power over OPD, such as the City Council, are trying to do with that power. If, on Feb. 1, this City Council, or a majority of it, gets away with this censorship, this cancel culture of the PIO, it will be a very sad and dangerous day in Oakland, and a day I promise you we will come to rue.
I need you to understand how deeply unAmerican this proposal is. The sponsors of this proposal—Fife and Kaplan--are behaving exactly like an authoritarian, fascist state, a one-party state—China, Russia, Myanmar, a state where there is no freedom of the press, no opposition empowered to challenge the government, no way for the people to know what’s really happening.
It’s such a cynical, depraved move. Fife-Kaplan know they have to send more cops to East Oakland anyway. There’s no choice about that; the public demands it. But they hate having to do it. I can just hear Fife and Kaplan having a little tete-a-tete over tea.
Fife: Look, we gotta send more cops to East Oakland. How can we get something out of this?
Kaplan: I have an idea. Let’s take the money from the PIO. We’ll kill two birds with one stone.
Fife: I love it.
“For if men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter.”
—George Washington
Steve Heimoff