Clermont County Determining Who's A Journalist

UPDATE: Bill Sloat over at The Daily Bellwether weighs in with his opinion.

A Clermont County group, Ohioans for Concealed Carry, are causing a ruckus from their request to obtain names and addresses of conceal-and-carry permit holders. Complying with OFCC's request, Clermont County Proseuctors are asking a judge to clarify Ohio's statutory definition of a "journalist." The question at the heart of this issue is whether OFCC is entitled to this info because statutorily it's only available for release to "journalists".

OFCC claims they are requesting this information because it's available to those defined by Ohio state law as journalists "for three reasons, including an effort to end the journalist loophole either through legislative reform or the courts."

Also OFCC claims there's a legitimate newsworthiness to the data and as such they are entitled to it. As of yet, the mainstream media has been too lazy to perform certain statistical analyses that groups like OFCC think should be reported. OFCC is requesting the data to perform these tests themselves.

The PeeDee reports on the facts of the case:

Jeff Garvas, the president of the group, says that he is a journalist who wants to analyze the information for his Web site and his group's quarterly newsletter.

Garvas said he had not seen the lawsuit and would not comment. But he stressed that he views the law as unconstitutional because it is so vague.

Prosecutors in the southwestern county near Cincinnati agree.

They said in the suit that Clermont County Sheriff Albert Rodenberg is required to give information to journalists. If he gives the information to nonjournalists, Rodenberg could be charged with a fifth-degree felony for improper release of the information. He could be fined as much as $1,000 for all willful violations, according to the suit.

So who exactly is defined as a journalist in Ohio? Jeff Garvas? The Plundercrew? The Buckeye State Blog?

Well, from what I can determine with a quick lexis search, most uses of "journalist" in Ohio statute can be traced back to Ohio Rev. Code §149.43(B)(9) which states:

As used in this division, "journalist" means a person engaged in, connected with, or employed by any news medium, including a newspaper, magazine, press association, news agency, or wire service, a radio or television station, or a similar medium, for the purpose of gathering, processing, transmitting, compiling, editing, or disseminating information for the general public.

So, while Ohio law doesn't exactly lay out that folks like Garvas (who have an agenda and invested interests in an issue) fall under the statutory definition of "journalist", the law doesn't close the door either. The key wording here is "similar medium"...and to the best of my knowledge there is no hard and fast guide as to what an acceptable "similar medium" to those listed could be. The wording of the statute gives a lot of discretion to the state agency controlling records...if they want to release information to a group they just consider the group engaged in a "similar medium" and clear the release. If they don't want to release the information, they cry foul and say the individual requesting isn't a journalist.

Is it vague? You bet, it seems to give way too much discretion to the state in determining who's legit and who's not. The law is certainly open to arbitrary enforcement in denying those individuals the state wishes to prevent from obtaining certain records. We'll see what Clermont decides, but that doesn't necessarily mean this is over.