“Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.” – Thomas Jefferson.
Great quote. Perhaps, Carolyn Henderson Allen can take a refresher course on US civics and learn a little about press freedom. This is absurd:
A Hillary Clinton donor who serves as dean of the University of Arkansas libraries has banned the Washington Free Beacon from the school’s special collections archives, after the news outlet published revealing stories about Hillary Clinton based on documents available at the university library.
The ban came days after the Free Beacon ran a story about Clinton’s 1975 defense of a child rapist that drew from audio recordings available at the University of Arkansas library’s special collections archives.
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Library dean Carolyn Henderson Allen informed editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti in a June 17 letter that the library had “officially suspended” the Free Beacon‘s research privileges.
The Free Beacon published the Hillary Papers, drawn from the archive of the late Clinton confidante Diane Blair, in February. Those papers are also housed in the special collections at the University of Arkansas.
“I am writing you to direct you and the Washington Beacon Press to cease and desist your ongoing violation of the intellectual property rights of the University of Arkansas with regard to your unauthorized publication of audio recordings obtained from the Roy Reed Collection,” wrote Allen.
According to Allen, who contributed $500 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2007, the Free Beacon violated library rules by failing to submit a form requesting permission to publish the materials.
Allen called on the news outlet to “immediately remove the audio recordings of the Roy Reed Collection from your website” and “immediately return all audio recordings obtained from the Roy Reed Collection previously provided to you.”
Give me a break. The notion that anything part of a taxpayer funded library requires “permission” to write about it is idiotic. This is information that is public record and doesn’t require permission.
Whether one likes the Washington Free Beacon or not is irrelevant. I enjoy it immensely despite the presence of a mongrel like Sonny Bunch, but that’s besides the point (I kid – Sonny is great). The issue here is, the WFB is a legitimate media outlet.
It is the press.
Think about this for a second: If this were the George W. Bush library at SMU and a Bush donor decided to ban TPM, The Nation or Mother Jones from the library because of perceived slight, media outlets all over the country would be issuing condemnations left and right at SMU, demanding they lift such a silly and arbitrary suspension.
The same should be done in this case.