Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Wendi Thomas

The editor of local news organization MLK50: Justice Through Journalism is suing the city of Memphis for refusing to include her on its media advisory lists.

The complaint was filed in federal court Wednesday by attorneys for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the press on behalf of Wendi Thomas, editor, publisher, and founder of MLK50.

The lawsuit alleges that the city, along with Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, and chief communications officer Ursula Madden, violated the U.S. and Tennessee constitutions by repeatedly denying Thomas’s requests to add her email address to the media advisory list.

Paul McAdoo, Tennessee’s staff attorney for the Reporter’s Committee Local Legal Initiative, said “it is flat unconstitutional for the city to disrupt and interfere with Ms. Thomas’ ability to gather and report news because it doesn’t like the content of her reporting.”

After multiple attempts to get the city and its officials to stop its retaliatory exclusion of Ms. Thomas from the media list, she has been left with no choice but to ask a federal district court to enforce her rights under the First Amendment and Tennessee Constitution. The administration has said it strives to be the most transparent and communicative in the city’s history, yet retaliation against Ms. Thomas and MLK50 for past coverage of the city is unlawful and ultimately shuts out the Memphis community relying on them for information.”

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According to the complaint, Thomas sent seven emails between May 2019 and January 2020 to the city asking to be included on the list, but was not added.

The lawsuit is asking the court to require the city to add Thomas to its media list immediately, publish explicit standards for including reporters and news organizations on its media list, and to provide notice to any reporter prior to removing them from the list, giving them an opportunity to contest it.

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“No politician likes being the subject of critical coverage, but that comes with elected office, and I would be abdicating my role as a journalist if I failed to hold local government, including the city of Memphis accountable,” said Thomas. “I am disappointed that it’s come to this since the fix is so simple: Just treat me and MLK50 like you treat other journalists and news outlets.The time and energy I’ve spent trying to get the city to respect my First Amendment right, I could have spent reporting on and for residents struggling to make ends meet and other marginalized groups.”

This comes after McAdoo sent a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Jon McCalla last week, alleging that by refusing to add MLK50 to its media contact list, the city is violating the 1978 Kendrick Consent Decree. The letter argued that the city’s treatment of MLK50 is “inconsistent with the city’s obligations under the Kendrick Consent Decree.”

The consent decree instructs the city not to “disrupt, discredit, interfere with, or otherwise harass any person exercising First Amendment rights.”

Memphis City Hall

A national media rights organization told a federal judge this week that the city may be violating a federal consent decree in its treatment of local news organization MLK50: Justice Through Journalism.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sent a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Jon McCalla Monday, alleging that by refusing to add MLK50 to its media contact list, the city is violating the 1978 Kendrick Consent Decree, MLK50 reported Tuesday.

McCalla was the judge in the 2018 police surveillance case, in which he ruled that the city had violated the consent decree by using social media and other tactics to surveil activists. Now, McCalla, and a monitoring team he appointed, is overseeing the city and police department’s adherence to the decree, which prevents the police department from gathering intelligence in ways that violate people’s First Amendment rights.

According to the letter sent by Paul McAdoo, Tennessee’s staff attorney for the Reporter’s Committee Local Legal Initiative, the city “has refused MLK50’s repeated requests to add Ms. [Wendi] Thomas, and MLK50’s managing editor, Deborah Douglas, to the city’s media advisory lists, which is inconsistent with the city’s obligations under the Kendrick Consent Decree.”

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The letter then highlights a section of the decree that instructs the city not to “disrupt, discredit, interfere with, or otherwise harass any person exercising First Amendment rights.”

The next section of the decree instructs the city not to “engage in any action for the purpose of, or reasonably having the effect of deterring any person from exercising First Amendment rights.”

McAdoo writes that the city has interfered with MLK50’s First Amendment rights and attempted to deter journalists from exercising those rights “by refusing to add them to the city’s media advisory lists.”

I did not want to involve lawyers to resolve @cityofmemphis ≠ treatment of @MLK50Memphis, but that wasn't possible. On Monday, our @RCFP atty submitted a public comment re the federal consent decree and he's sent 2 letters to city atty. cc: @ACLU https://t.co/zcRbWiOWAx

— Wendi C. Thomas (@wendi_c_thomas) May 5, 2020

Lawyer Tells Judge City is Violating Local News Organization’s First Amendment Rights

According to the letter, Thomas, the founder, editor, and publisher of MLK50, was on the city’s media list until January 2019, but learned she had been removed in fall 2019. Since then, Thomas, along with managing editor Douglass has asked the city to re-add MLK50 to the list, but the “city refused to do so.”

“The city’s refusal is motivated by its perception that MLK50’s coverage of it is somehow unfair or not objective,” McAdoo writes. “Such content- and viewpoint-discrimination, however, runs afoul of the First Amendment … Not having the same access to information available to other members of the media whom the city has included on its media advisory list interferes with MLK50 and its journalists’ First Amendment rights and is done to deter their coverage of the city, both of which are violations of the Kendrick consent decree.”

The city did not immediately respond to the Flyer‘s request for comment.