Journalists covering the special session of the Alaska Legislature later this month will have their credentials automatically revoked if they try to take photographs anywhere on the Capitol grounds during a medical emergency, based on a new rule released last week that could be unconstitutional.
The rule expands a ban on the use of cameras and recording equipment previously confined to the floor of the House and Senate, following an incident earlier this year when Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, temporarily revoked the press credentials of a reporter and photographer, Jeremy Hsieh and Skip Gray of Gavel Alaska, the public access television service that broadcasts legislative activity. Gray was trying to take pictures of a stricken state representative as he was being transferred into an ambulance outside the Capitol building.
Johnson chairs the House Rules Committee and issues the press rules along with Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla. In a phone interview Monday, Johnson said the expanded rules were needed to assure adequate access to the building by medical professionals, and he accused Hsieh and Gray of impeding medical care for Rep. Ben Nageak, D-Barrow.
“There were people in the press that were actually preventing and standing in the way,” Johnson said. “We tried to move them out and they said, ‘We have the right to be here.’”