When a School Board punishes scrutiny, the public pays the price

This week, the Burke County Board of Education crossed a line that should alarm every citizen who values open government, transparency, and the free flow of information.

During their monthly board meeting on Dec. 15, and before a full house of parents, teachers, students, and residents, the board unanimously approved a formal Statement restricting media access for one news organization and one alone. The Paper.

Before the vote, each board member read a portion of the Statement, which revokes what the board calls its “special media access privileges” and reserves enhanced access only for media outlets it deems to meet “reasonable professional standards.”

No other local, regional, or state media outlet is subject to this restriction. Only this newspaper. This selective censorship unquestionably violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, The Paper’s right to Free Speech and Free Press and other rights enumerated by the North Carolina Constitution.

Here’s an immediate example of the impact of that policy. This week The Paper had scheduled and coordinated interviews with education officials to publish a story about a team of innovative students from Heritage Middle School and their community-focused projects — holiday gift drives and food drives — in conjunction with The Mountain Aid Project.

It is a great Holiday story that celebrates our students. On Wednesday, The Paper was informed that it could not be on campus and interview students. The interviews were cancelled. We can’t share this heartwarming story.

The revoking of media access isn’t punishing The Paper. It’s punishing the students, teachers, and volunteers who do great things.

Selective restriction is not a neutral policy. It is retaliation. And when a government body retaliates against a specific newspaper for its coverage, it is not merely managing communications. It is engaging in censorship.

The board’s Statement asserts that The Paper has “repeatedly published stories…that contain misleading, inaccurate, or distorted information” and claims this represents a “documented pattern of reporting that undermines public understanding.”

This pattern, they said later, has persisted as long as The Paper has been published.

Those are grave allegations. In any serious institution, they would be accompanied by evidence.

Yet earlier this week, at a meeting requested by The Paper and attended in good faith, school system leaders were asked directly to identify examples of The Paper’s reporting patterns that “repeatedly publishes inaccuracies (and) harms not only this board but the entire community,” as claimed in the Statement.

There is a lot of material to work with. The Paper has published 57 stories this year about the Burke County Board of Education. Yet the school board leaders did not cite one example of sustained and repeated inaccuracies.

Their main focus was The Paper’s use of the word, “layoffs” in a headline. They had insisted, repeatedly and firmly, publicly and privately, with as much conviction as they could muster, that layoffs were not part of the calculus while strategizing budget shortfalls.

Yet viewers of the YouTube video of the Dec. 2 work session public meeting heard “layoffs” directly and indirectly.

Our use of the word “layoffs” in the Dec. 6 headline was driven by two elements: The tone and tenor of open discussion during the work session meeting; and the accidental public presentation of the finance director’s spreadsheet titled, “BCPS Cost Savings Initiatives.”

That document was loaded with reduction-in-force action steps using the words, “Eliminate” “Split” “Consolidate” “Cut”.

By projecting the document onto a large screen during a public meeting, it became part of the record and eligible information for reporting. The information contained within added specificity to the depth and breadth of cost savings initiatives actively being considered.

The school board asked The Paper not to publish images of the spreadsheet in its Dec. 6 story of this document because it was an internal working document and not ready for public display. In the spirit of cooperation, and as a professional courtesy, The Paper complied.

A week later the school board singularly revokes The Paper’s media access with censorship because it has not “met the basic expectations of … professionalism required for enhanced media access.”

In The Paper’s Page One story this week, School Superintendent Dr. Mike Swan and board chair Tiana Beachler said that they could not rule out layoffs, contrary to what they had been telling staff earlier in the week.

That failure in transparency matters. Because accountability, like journalism, rests on facts. Accusations without evidence are not oversight. They are pretext.

Instead of pointing to errors and seeking corrections to any errors in The Paper, the board chose a far more troubling route. It imposed new barriers on a single news outlet, restricted access to school properties, and set an expectation that questions be submitted in advance before interviews may occur.

This is not transparency. It is message control.

The Paper rejects the Burke County Board of Education’s characterization of our reporting. We stand behind the objectivity of our news stories, the integrity of our staff, and how we cover our public institutions, including the school board and the district schools.

We see their ‘Statement’ not as a defense of transparency, but a punishment for scrutiny.

Differential treatment of media outlets by a public body raises serious First Amendment concerns, particularly when access is granted to other news organizations covering the same public institution.

In practice, this approach limits follow-up questions. It reduces spontaneity. It discourages probing inquiry. It transforms journalism into a scripted exercise designed for comfort rather than clarity. And it deprives the public of the unfiltered exchange that democratic accountability requires.

The board insists this action does not limit The Paper’s “legal rights.” That assertion collapses under even modest scrutiny.

Our legal counsel has been unequivocal. Singling out a newspaper for adverse treatment because of its reporting violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and the free speech and free press guarantees of the North Carolina Constitution.

Courts have long held that government officials may not do indirectly what they are forbidden to do directly. Retaliation chills speech. And chilled speech is the enemy of democracy.

North Carolina’s Constitution goes further still, declaring that freedom of speech and of the press “shall never be restrained.” It also protects the right of citizens to earn a living without punitive government interference.

When a public body acts not to protect the public interest but to punish a business for standing up to government authority, it violates those principles.

This is not abstract law. It is lived reality. Journalism is our business. Accuracy, balance, and integrity are the currency of our existence. When we get something wrong, we correct it. Publicly. Transparently. On the record. That is not a slogan. It is our practice.

Since February 2023, The Paper has covered Burke County Public Schools with seriousness and care. We report on budgets, academic performance, construction projects, staffing decisions, safety issues, governance, and policy. We quote officials accurately. We publish responses in full when appropriate. We seek multiple perspectives. We ask hard questions because the public deserves real answers.

That work is not hostility. It is journalism.