Covered At Last: Courier-Journal Gives Front Page Treatment to Baron's “This Is My Town Hall Meeting” Blow Up

And in which Baron Hill denounces the girl that asked him a question about his taping policy as "his political enemy."

It's a sad state of affairs when a United States Congressman views students wanting to get good grades on projects as his political enemies. But then, it's also a sad state of affairs that a United States Congressman would view the office he holds as belonging to him and not the people, and it's dismaying when that Congressman views the town halls he holds as being his rather than the people of the district, let alone have this backward taping policy.

As I've noted before, this coverage has been long in coming; you still won't find a single mention of this video in the many IDEA-aligned local newspapers within the district itself (IDEA being the Indiana Democratic Editorial Association), unless (as--credit where due--the Corydon Democrat did) it gets mention in the letters section.

The CJ tracked down the young lady that asked the question, and reported on the exact circumstances of her involvement. Surprise, surprise, what they reported is not the story that Baron's staff have claimed--and Baron himself have claimed--for the past few weeks after the video went viral.

What? Baron lie? Surely not.

The story, which featured on the front page of the Indiana edition of today's Courier-Journal:

Hill forum incident lands on YouTube despite no-taping policy

Despite his best efforts to prevent it, U.S. Rep. Baron Hill has become a hit on YouTube after being confronted by an Indiana University student who was ordered by Hill’s staff to stop recording his town hall meeting on health-care reform.

IU sophomore Ashley Scott says Hill’s staff gave her permission to video-record Hill’s Sept. 2 town hall meeting at Bloomington High School North — then was told later she had to stop or be escorted out.

Notice how Baron and his staff omit this part in their various accounts of what happened.

Scott chose to stay and later questioned Hill in a recorded exchange that has since been posted on the Internet video-sharing site by the National Republican Campaign Committee.

“Why can’t I film this? Isn’t this my right?” Scott asked.

Hill answered, “This is my town hall meeting and I set the rules.”

After howls from some in the audience, Hill went on: “Let me repeat that one more time. This is my town hall meeting for you, and you’re not going to tell me how to run my congressional office. Now the reason I don’t allow filming is because usually the films end up on YouTube in a compromising position.”

The NRCC clip of Hill had been viewed more than 170,000 times as of Saturday.

Pause for a moment here to relish the delicious irony of this. No matter how many times Baron's quote gets repeated, it's hard not to accompany it with the number of views that the video has received.

In case you missed it:

Hill, D-9th District, said he was following his policy, which bars anyone other than “accredited media” from taping his public appearances.

Hill said in a telephone interview from Washington that the reason for the taping policy “is exactly what happened here.” He said the video takes the event out of context.

“You’re taking a 30- to 60-second snippet of a 60-minute town hall meeting, and it is not a true representation of how that town hall meeting was conducted,” Hill said.

Watch the above video again.

Then go about 17 minutes in on the full footage (courtesy of the Bloomington Herald-Times and from which the "my town hall meeting" clip was taken) and watch five minutes of the town hall. The question about recording comes about eighteen minutes in and lasts for about a minute.

How is it being taken out of context?

He also said some constituents had told him they felt uncomfortable when people were taping them.

Scott, an IU language major, said she was at the town hall meeting to help a friend, journalism major Ashley Freije, tape and photograph the event for a class project.

She acknowledged she opposes the health care overhaul that Hill favors and was sitting within a group of people who also oppose the measure, but did not go to the meeting for that purpose.

“I was honestly shocked by his response,” Scott said. “I mean, he’s an elected official, so it wasn’t his town hall, it’s mine. My vote puts him in office and gives him the right to call town hall meetings.”

Freije said she also was upset by the incident.

“I just wanted to take pictures for my project,” she said. “… If the congressman is so afraid of it being used badly then maybe he should think about what he says to make sure things won’t be misconstrued that way.”

She said the project was one that she selected on her own, and was not specifically assigned.

There you have it; the first time anyone has talked to the young lady that asked the question, and the first time that anyone has reported on the related facts.

And, again, the facts do not match the spin that Baron's staff has put on this whole affair.

Good reporting from the Courier-Journal's Harold Adams.

Freije’s professor, Claude Cookman, said federal student privacy rules prevent him from commenting.

Hill described the two women as “my political enemies.”

Let's repeat that last line:

Hill described the two women as “my political enemies.”

This is madness.

A young lady asks a simple question.

Baron's response is just terrible.

And the thing ends up on YouTube anyway because media that Baron's office allowed to record the event did record it.

And that makes this young lady and her friend Baron's political enemies?

Since when did Baron Hill become Richard Nixon?

Since when did asking simple and straightforward questions of a United States Congressman get you on his enemies list?

This is just bizarre.

“It became evident that they weren’t there to get legitimate answers to a question. They were there to disrupt,” he said.

This is a lie.

Again, it has absolutely no basis in fact or reality.

Go back and rewatch the question. The girl asked about the recording policy.

And after Baron gave his YouTube-worth answer (and then berated the crowd for its reaction to his arrogance), she asked a second (also substantive) question:

"How will you provide health care to fifty million new people without adding any new doctors, especially now that doctors and nurses are leaving because of a lack of tort reform?"

Baron answered that question without complaint of the young lady being disruptive:

"Well, we need new doctors and I'm glad that my daughter is one of the persons that's going to be adding to that list. But right now, the people who don't have health insurance now still get coverage by the doctors that we have. What do they do? They go to the emergency room. They end up going to the emergency room where it's more costly. [noise from the crowd] Now just a minute. They go to the emergency room where it's more costly. They can't pay for it, and so the costs are shed off to us so we have to pay for it because they don't have insurance. [applause] That to me is a very inefficient system and one that we need to change. And you've had your chance, I want to go to the next person."

Notice that Baron--his temper flaring--didn't term her disruptive at the time, and he also didn't answer her question about tort reform. Her question wasn't about emergency rooms or the doctors we have.

Her question was about how we are losing existing doctors because of high practicing costs (malpractice insurance, etc) brought on by a lack of tort reform. It was a salient and thoughtful question.

Baron did not give her an answer.

But Scott said she and Freije “kept everything very polite and non-disruptive, so I have no idea what he could be referring to.”

And this is verified by a simple watching of the video.

When asked what evidence he had to support the disruptive claim, Hill responded that Scott falsely claimed to be a journalism student.

First of all, this is a lie.

Second of all, that has absolutely no bearing on either of her questions during the event itself, and neither of her questions later on can be construed as disruptive, as a rewatching the video itself will confirm.

Does anyone really think that this video would have any fewer views or been any less indicative of Baron Hill's arrogance if it was asked by some other young lady instead?

Conversely, does anyone think that the rest of Baron's town hall performance would have gotten this many views on YouTube if he did not have this absurd no recording policy?

Scott, however, said she made clear when she was given a media pass that Freije was the journalism student “and I was assisting her with a project … and she made sure that I had to conduct myself as such.”

“I was here to do a project that was unbiased,” Freije said.

As for the policy to restrict tapings, Hill said he consulted with the House General Counsel’s office “and they told us we have every right to do this.”

Shaida Fai, a law clerk with the general counsel’s office, said, “Our office doesn’t comment on its legal advice to members.”

Dan Gillmor, an Arizona State University professor who is director and founder of the Center for Citizen Media, the non-profit organization affiliated with ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said he knows of no other public official with a policy like Hill’s.

Let's repeat:

...he knows of no other public official with a policy like Hill’s.

There are 535 members of Congress.

Not a single other one has a "don't tape me bro!" policy like the one being exercised by Baron Hill.

And a heck of a lot of good his policy did him anyway, since the video is on YouTube and has now been viewed by 171,000+ people.

I'm no lawyer, but I am by no means convinced that the policy is legal given that it is a public event, a public official, in a public building, and potentially subject to various state open door and sunshine laws (it was held in a public school paid for with state money, after all).

I defer to those with legal expertise to say more. A fuller treatment of the issue is certainly necessary.

“Even if what they’re doing is permitted by law, it’s bizarre and it’s destined to fail anyway in the long run” because of the proliferation of smaller and smaller recording devices that can easily be concealed, Gillmor said.

Trey Pollard, spokesman for U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-3rd District of Kentucky, said Yarmuth does not place restrictions on taping at his meetings.

Sam Marcosson, a First Amendment expert at the University of Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law, said Hill’s policy probably is on solid legal ground.

“Anyone has the right to say they do not wish to be taped and recorded and to set the conditions under which they will be recorded,” Marcosson said.

This is not necessarily the case. It might be for private events in private buildings. Public events held by public officials in public spaces are likely a different matter.

But he added that implementing such a policy is ultimately a political decision.

“That may be—and the voters ultimately will decide—an incredibly unwise thing to do, even foolish,” Marcosson said. “But I don’t think it violates the First Amendment.”

Saying that the no taping policy is unwise and potentially foolish is the understatement of the year. As I noted above, there was nothing Baron said at either town hall that would have generated 171,000+ views on YouTube were it not for his no taping policy provoking this question, and leading to him giving an arrogant and insulting answer. His lies and phony spin after the fact are just icing on the cake of irony.