Mississippi Senate Moves to Muzzle the Press

Some Mississippi legislators since time immemorial have wanted the news media off their minds and out of their eyes and ears.

Many, but not all, lawmakers don’t understand the media’s connection with basic everyday citizens. If a legislator can explain how citizens would know what’s happening at the Capitol without reports from the news media, please start typing.

The Clarion-Ledger’s legislative correspondent, Grant McLaughlin, recently reported that State Sen. Kevin Blackwell of Southaven, through Resolution 5 pending in the chamber’s Rules Committee, wants to kick reporters off the Senate floor and move them into the gallery high above the chamber to perform their duties.

Mr. Blackwell has stated that moving reporters to the gallery won’t prohibit them from doing their job. He says it’s “horse hockey” to make such a claim. I say it’s ridiculous to believe it wouldn’t inhibit the reporters’ highest ability to perform their work.

I know because I’ve done that job, as did my father, the late Charles B. Gordon, also of the Jackson newspapers. I also worked for 13 years as the House of Representatives’ media liaison alongside Speakers Tim Ford and Billy McCoy.

Mr. Blackwell would probably be better off worrying about this: The Mississippi Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit to create two new majority-Black districts in the State Senate, including one that could affect his own seat.

Under the plan, Republican Sens. Blackwell and David Parker, both of DeSoto County, would be placed in the same district and face each other, if they ran. This would free up a majority-Black Senate district to be drawn. The same scenario faces Republican Sens. John Polk and Chris Johnson of Hattiesburg.

So, would you be more concerned about shooing the news media off the Senate floor or the ACLU’s lawsuit alleging that the latest legislative redistricting effort in 2022 dilutes Black voting strength?

I suspect the lawmaker’s efforts on both of these matters will fail. The federal courts have ruled the state’s 2022 redistricting plan is flawed. Can he beat the federal judiciary, the ACLU and the media? The Capitol correspondents are working feverishly to inform Mississippians of goingson under the dome, and this is not their first rodeo in turning back efforts to shift them around in the building.

McLaughlin wrote, “Because the resolution would actually amend the rules of the Senate, it has been sent to the Rules Committee, chaired by Senate President Pro Tempore Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, who is second in command … behind Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. “

Kirby said he has long had good relations with the media and has no intentions of restricting floor access to news outlets. However, a long-standing but rarely enforced rule to allow only one member of a news organization on the floor at one time could be enforced.”

Numerous efforts also have been made through the years to boot the reporters out of their pristine fourth floor “Ken Toler Press Room,” named for the Memphis Commercial-Appeal’s longtime Jackson correspondent. Sen. Blackwell, 70, a DeSoto County businessman, tried that just last year. That bill died in committee.

That space is hallowed in the Capitol, occupied by reporters for decades including the legendary Emily Wagster Pettus, who recently retired after three decades of exemplary work for

The Clarion-Ledger and the Associated Press.

Overlooking the entire middle of the Capitol, the office is where reporters finish their news articles and send them to their employers and, ultimately, to the citizens of Mississippi.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation puts the situation just right: “If regular people are to have a seat at the table in Jackson, journalists must have a place on the floor.”

---Mac Gordon is a native of McComb. He is a retired newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.