Photo Credit to calender.us.com
Turning Point USA has positioned itself as a bastion of Free Speech on university campuses. However, I am starting to think, as a journalist, that their celebration of the First Amendment stops at the freedom of press.
I came to this conclusion after the organization barred me from filming their Prove Me Wrong event with Alex Stein on September 16. Looking into the University of Wyoming’s policies, they simply did not have the authority to bar press from said events on campus.
To give some background, this isn’t the first Prove Me Wrong Event that I have covered for the WyoWire news broadcast. I had covered the Josh Haymes event that occurred six months ago in the sunroom of the Union. There I didn’t have any issue filming and interviewing students and TPUSA leadership. The fact that I was barred this past week is a new development.
Their attempt to exert this supposed authority at this latest event is either intentionally deceptive or simply organizational incompetence. Either way, it demonstrates that TPUSA wants freedom of speech without the freedom of press at these events.
What Happened
At around 1 PM, I walked onto Simpsons Plaza with my camera, tripod and microphones to capture the event and student interviews. After getting some shots in the crowd, I approached the side of the TPUSA table where I was approached by Vega Stamatien, the Southwest Regional Manager for TPUSA.
Stamatien started questioning what I was doing so I informed her that I was with Student Media and was covering the event. Stamatien then informed me that because I was with a press organization, I needed a press pass in order to film there.
This was surprising because the event was taking place in the middle of Simpsons Plaza, an outside public location. Once I brought up that fact, Stamatien doubled down saying that because they reserved the plaza I had needed to go through “their process” in order to film there.
Following that interaction, I had stopped my coverage because I needed to know if they were right. After asking for further clarification, Stamatien and I had a phone conversation to clear up any misunderstandings.
There, she informed me that it is required for both Student Media and local news outlets to coordinate with the TPUSA press team to get vetted and receive permission to attend these events. When asked about enforcement, Stamatien clarified that they work with campus police for security and because they had reserved Simpon’s Plaza, they had the authority to bar press from the event.
After looking into it, Stamatien is simply incorrect. Before the call, I had left Chad Bauldwin, the Associate Vice President of Marketing and Communications for UW, a voicemail to check if I did have the right to record something that was happening on Simpson’s Plaza.
Once he had gotten back to me and checked with the proper campus authorities he confirmed that Simpson’s Plaza was indeed a public location not subject to filming restrictions. He also clarified that organizations that reserve public campus spaces do not typically have the right to bar press. On top of that, TPUSA did not coordinate or make the university aware of any press limitation for this Prove Me Wrong event.
TPUSA is exercising an authority they do not have, and to what end? To prevent a free press from covering their debates.
Another thing that Stamatien got wrong is the fact that TPUSA’s press team doesn’t even provide press passes to Prove Me Wrong events.
In an email I received from Lindsay Price, the Public Relations Administrator for TPUSA Media, I was informed that Prove Me Wrong events are “private and not open to the press” and that the organization does not provide press passes to them. I wouldn’t even have been able to get their permission if I had gone through their process in the first place.
When I asked follow-up questions on how this policy interacted with public locations or if they have filming exclusivity rights, they did not respond at the time of this article publication.
It appears that the press policies that TPUSA has simply does not reflect reality. While it’s common to have some coordination between press and public events, this coordination acts more as a courtesy than outright permission.
If TPUSA wants these events to be private, they need to hold them in private locations. They cannot hold these events in the middle of campus and expect to prevent press coverage.
Why Does This Matter?
You might be asking, so what? These Prove Me Wrong events are already live streamed, clipped and spread across social media through TPUSA’s platform. Why should people care that TPUSA wants to prevent other press organizations from attending?
I would argue that people should care because this shows some hypocrisy on TPUSA’s end. If these events are supposed to be the lightning rod of freedom of speech, that should also extend to the freedom of press.
TPUSA has already positioned itself as a powerful political leader on university campuses. As a student journalist working for a university press organization, it’s within the public interest to have access to outside coverage of their events.
In my previous coverage, I reported on what UW students thought of these events. When I spoke to those who attempted to prove Haymes wrong, they still walked away with the attitude that open forums like this are productive in the campus discourse. When people disagreed with the event, I got to find out why and report on it as well.
If you only see the debates on TPUSA’s social media, you wouldn’t know the greater campus impact and it’s my job as a journalist to make sure that people do. The fact the TPUSA feels as if they can get in the way of that worries me as I value a free press.
Now knowing my rights as a journalist, I will need to push through TPUSA’s attempt to stop me the next time they hold one of these events in a public place. If TPUSA wants freedom of speech on campus, they should extend that to the press as well. If they want these free speech events to be private, they should hold them in private locations.
So I call on TPUSA to prove me wrong. If they believe in a free press, they should change their policies to reflect that.
