Rieder: Unlike Trump, Pence has been a press champion
Donald Trump hardly has a record as a champion of the press.
He has talked of gutting libel law protection for the media once he makes it to the White House. He has blacklisted major news outlets from covering his rallies when he doesn't like their reporting. He has insulted journalists individually and collectively, calling political reporters "among the most dishonest people that I have ever met." Indeed, Trump seems to see critical articles not as part of the accountability process built into American democracy but simply as personal attacks.
It's somewhat surprising, then, that his choice of running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, over the years has been a stalwart champion of freedom of the press.
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During his years in Congress, Pence was a leader in the persistent, but ultimately unsuccessful, effort to pass a shield law, which in many instances would protect journalists from being forced to identify confidential sources.
In an op-ed in The Washington Times in 2008, Pence gave a ringing endorsement to the importance of an aggressive press in a free society, one that would have been right at home in a dispatch from the American Society of News Editors.
Citing the value of articles that had revealed disturbing conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and steroid abuse in baseball, Pence wrote that such pieces would never have seen the light of day "were it not for confidential sources and the dogged persistence of a free and independent press."
And he linked his support for such dogged journalism firmly to his own well-right-of-center politics.
"As a conservative who believes in limited government, I believe the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press," he wrote, "A free press ensures the flow of information to the public, and in this time of scandal and corruption in high places, such information is needed now more than ever to hold the government accountable."
But Pence stumbled mightily over the government/media relationship early in 2015 when his administration made plans to set up what essentially would have been a government-run news service.
According to documents obtained by The Indianapolis Star, the news service was to feature articles by state press secretaries that would be published on a website and made available for use by news outlets around the state. (The Star, like USA TODAY, is owned by Gannett.)
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Once the plan leaked, it was instantly derided as a ploy to disseminate government-sanctioned news that would be more at home in a totalitarian state than in a democracy. The Atlantic skewered the ill-conceived "news" outlet as "Pravda on the Plains."
In the wake of the devastating fallout, Pence wisely mothballed it, running away from it as fast as he could.
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The campaign to enact a shield law for journalists began in 2005 after then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent more than 12 weeks in jail after refusing to identify a confidential source. The information was being sought in a federal investigation of whether anyone in the Bush administration had leaked the identity of an undercover CIA employee to the press.
The idea of a reporter spending time in the slammer for doing her job horrified many, and over the ensuing decade there were repeated efforts to push through a shield law. The bill would not have provided absolute protection for confidentiality — for example, reporters would be compelled to testify if national security concerns were found to trump source protection — but it definitely represented an improvement over the status quo. Forty-eight states have either laws or court precedents protecting confidentiality; the federal government has bupkis.
Pence was a chief sponsor of the bill in Congress. "Compelling reporters to testify, and in particular, compelling them to reveal the identity of their confidential sources, is a detriment to the public interest," Pence said when he reintroduced the measure in 2011. "Without the free flow of information from sources to reporters, the public is ill-equipped to make informed decisions."
The bill seemed on it way to passage in 2009 when it was approved by the House and the Senate Judiciary Committee. But it died in the midst of panic over Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.
The shield law resurfaced in the wake of serious concern about overzealous leak investigations by the Obama administration of The Associated Press and Fox news reporter James Rosen. In July 2013, Sen. Charles Schumer, a major proponent of the bill, told me he was confident it would at last become law. But, alas, that wasn't the case. The bill was yet another casualty of congressional gridlock.
Rieder: Shield law for journalists a gridlock casualty
But it's probably best that journalism fans don't take too much solace from Pence's pro-press history.
Pence and Trump disagree about many things: the Iraq War, free trade, Trump's call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. But since he joined Team Trump, the Indiana governor's positions are evolving quickly in a Trumpward direction. Wrote Indianapolis Star opinion editor Tim Swarens, "The Pence I’ve seen and heard this weekend is suddenly different from the leader and man I thought I knew."
Besides, judging from the VP announcement event and the Trump/Pence 60 Minutes interview Sunday night, should they make it to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., it seems like Pence will have trouble muscling his way into a conversation with his boss.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Rem Rieder on Twitter @remrieder