Getting a lesson on the freedom of speech
It’s a good bet Kirby Delauter knows a good bit more about freedom of speech and media relations today than he did one week ago.
Who is Kirby Delauter? Until Tuesday, he was an obscure councilman in Frederick County, Maryland. But he became a national punchline – particularly among those of us who labor in the vineyards of journalism – when he wrote an angry post on Facebook Monday denouncing a reporter for the Frederick News-Post for the “unauthorized use of my name” in an article she wrote.
Delauter went on to suggest, with more than a tiny hint of menace, that “you need to know who you’re dealing with,” and warned that the reporter should not contact him and not use his name “or reference me in an unauthorized form in the future.”
Delauter, a Republican councilman since 2010, has apparently managed to hold office for that entire period without realizing that the press need not seek authorization from people it writes about, whether they are individuals accused of crimes or, particularly, elected officials who are entrusted with power over the public purse and need to be held accountable for their decisions.
It’s all part of this thing we call democracy, going back to the founding of our republic, you see. Public officials don’t have to like what they read, and they are under no obligation to comment, though failing to do so tends to justifiably make constituents suspicious.
Delauter was reminded of this by the reporter, Bethany Rodgers, who replied on Facebook that “It is not just our right but our responsibility to report on people like you, who occupy positions of trust in our government, and I make no apologies for doing that.” Rodgers also said she would continue to contact Delauter for comment on relevant stories and “whether or not you return my calls is up to you.”
Undeterred, Delauter replied, “Use my name again unauthorized (sic) and you’ll be paying for an Attorney. Your rights stop where mine start.”
Presumably, Delauter has spent the last couple of days huddling with a lawyer, because the story has received national attention, with scores of media outlets – and we can add this one to the list now – using Delauter’s name without his blessing. The Washington Post, NPR, The Baltimore Sun the Chicago Tribune have all reported on the fracas.
If he has talked to a lawyer, he has undoubtedly been informed that the name one is given at birth is not subject to copyright, and its use is not something that is subject to bargaining. Even things that are under copyright, like music, movies or books, can be discussed without the creator’s permission.
The lawyer has surely also informed him that his case would not just be laughed out of court, but met with a mighty chorus of guffaws.
Writing in The Washington Post, Eugene Volokoh, of UCLA’s School of Law, wrote that “In our country, newspapers are actually allowed to write about elected officials (and others) without their permission. It’s an avant-garde experiment, to be sure, but we’ve had some success with it.”
It was the Frederick News-Post that had the last laugh, though. They wrote an editorial about it. Its headline? “Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter.” It used the name over 20 times in the course of the editorial. And the first letter of each paragraph in descending order spells, coincidentally enough, K-I-R-B-Y-D-E-L-A-U-T-E-R.