SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the paying-the-price-for-freedom-of-the-press dept.
[Public News Service of West Virginia Reporter Daniel Ralph Heyman] has been arrested and charged with "disruption of government services" in the state capitol for "yelling questions" at visiting Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price and White House senior advisor Kellyanne Conway.
[...] "The above defendant was aggressively breaching the secret service agents to the point where the agents were forced to remove him a couple of times from the area walking up the hallway in the main building of the Capitol," the complaint states. It adds Heyman caused a disturbance by "yelling questions at Ms. Conway and Secretary Price."
The misdemeanor carries a possible fine of $100 and up to six months in jail.
[...] The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia called the charges "outrageous" and said the arrest was "a blatant attempt to chill an independent, free press."
"Freedom of the press is being eroded every day, " it said in a statement. "We have a president who calls the media 'fake news' and resists transparency at every turn."
The statement said this is a "dangerous time in the country."
Price and Conway were in West Virginia to discuss opioid addiction in the state, which has the highest drug overdose death rate in the nation.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:29PM
The actual website looks like it was designed twenty years ago but only claims 2007 for a start. You didn't think I posted without doing a quick Google search? You must be new around here. :)
I'm not new around here. That's why it was no surprise to me that your "quick google search" was bogus as shit.
The West Virginia bureau of the Public News Service was launched in 2007. The organization itself is 20 years old as the banner on their website says. Their website also says:
Last year the Public News Service produced over 4,000 stories featuring multiplatform public interest content that was picked up and re-distributed 100s of 1,000s of times on websites, local print outlets, radio and TV stations, plus on mobile devices. 1,000s of other websites and mobile devices. Nationally, an average of 60 outlets used each story.
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/about/mission.php [publicnewsservice.org]
Currently, tens of thousands of media outlets receive our content and more than 8,000 nationally are regularly using our stories, reaching a combined national weekly audience of Over 40 Million.
...
we manage independent news services in 36 states.
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/about.php [publicnewsservice.org]