Volusia Sheriff's Office leaves News-Journal off invitation list to press conference

Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood for at least the second time declined to invite The Daytona Beach News-Journal to an important press conference.

Chitwood announced Wednesday, Feb. 28, on social media that he would hold a media briefing Thursday about the location of the remains of a 16-year-old girl.

On Thursday, Chitwood's media staff did not send an announcement to The News-Journal about the time and place of the briefing nor did it respond to emails and a text to spokesman Andrew Gant inquiring about the briefing.

Chitwood conducted the media briefing with at least WESH-TV and Fox 35 in attendance. It’s unclear how Chitwood communicated to them the time and place of the briefing.

Chitwood opted not to include The News-Journal despite his spokesman Gant previously telling the Orlando Sentinel in an editorial critical of the sheriff that if a News-Journal reporter shows up to a news event, they won’t be turned away. “The News-Journal has the same access to that as anybody else,” Gant said. “They just don’t have exclusive access.”

News-Journal Executive Editor John Dunbar said, "It is difficult to show up at a news conference that we don't know about."

The Sheriff's Office did stream the press conference online — hours after it was over.

In the prior incident, Chitwood held a press conference Oct. 2 to announce the arrest of a 17-year-old who is alleged to have sold a fatal dose of fentanyl to another teen. But The News-Journal was not invited.

When Dunbar emailed Gant asking him to explain the oversight, Gant said there had been none.

“No oversight, sorry. The Sheriff is no longer inviting the NJ to his news conference or commenting for stories. This one’s available online for anyone to see, though,” Gant wrote.

Origin of the conflict

Chitwood has been upset with The News-Journal since its coverage of the Nicole Jackson-Maldonado case.

Jackson-Maldonado was a 14-year-old runaway who along with a 12-year-old boy was accused of shooting at deputies. The boy's case was kept in juvenile court and a deputy showed up at his sentencing and forgave the boy.

Jackson-Maldonado’s case was kept in adult court and she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The State Attorney's Office said Jackson-Maldonado was the "ringleader" and the "primary shooter."

Since then he has found other stories to complain about.

Chitwood criticized a jury that found cop-killer Othal Wallace guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter with a firearm. One of Wallace’s defense attorneys called Chitwood’s criticism of the jury system “un-American.” The sheriff lashed out at the newspaper and the attorney, attacking the reporter on social media, and prompting a response from Dunbar.

Pre-publication 'bullying'

Chitwood posts his criticism on his Facebook page, where most of his followers back him unquestionably. Chitwood has also used his social media presence to criticize the paper for stories that haven’t even been published.

For example, he blasted The News-Journal in a lengthy post for a "trash hit job" about an unpublished story regarding the tragic death of a woman walking down the sidewalk, killed by a driver who went unpunished. He accused the paper of accusing the Sheriff's Office of a cover-up when the reporter was actually relaying an allegation by the victim's relative.

Dunbar responded at length to the post, saying the sheriff was using a "bullying tactic" designed to get out in front of a story that he worried might cast him in a bad light. "We will not be bullied, not by Chitwood, not by anyone."

"We are going to hold ALL government officials accountable for their actions in our newspaper," he continued. "And that includes the sheriff, regardless of his cyber-bullying and disregard for the facts."

Punishing readers

Barbara Petersen, a highly regarded expert on Florida's laws on open government, now the executive director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, said the sheriff needs a thicker skin.

“The sheriff is just pissed because of what you reported,” she said. “He needs a thicker skin and he needs to understand that the public relies on what they learn from your paper.”

Chitwood thinks he is somehow punishing The News-Journal when "in fact, he is punishing your subscribers and your readers,” she continued. “This isn’t about the newspaper. This is about the people that the newspaper serves. It’s those people who he is punishing.”

Petersen said the press corps should "just boycott him: If they can’t come then we won’t either,” she said.

Chilling effect

While she said she needed to do more research on press conferences, Grace Nezkwesi, the legal fellow at the First Amendment Foundation, said she did not believe that Chitwood could exclude one media outlet while allowing others to attend.

She said Chitwood needs to treat everyone the same.

“It does sound like a chilling effect and a restraint on your organization’s First Amendment Rights,” she said.

Chitwood is wrong to blackball a member of the press, said David Cuillier, the director of the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communication.

“On the surface, it just seems really petty and contrary to good public policy,” Cuillier said. “The idea is to get information out to the public, and public officials shouldn’t be choosing which news outlets they like and don’t like. And blackballing the ones they don’t like doesn’t serve the public.”

He said Chitwood is actually shutting out the public.

“The press is just a proxy for the people,” Cuillier said. “When they shut out one newspaper they are shutting out that people and that’s not right.”

The Sheriff's Office did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Sheriff Chitwood doesn't invite News-Journal to press conference