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Appended is an article titled "Land of the fee for photos in national parks?"
 The original idea behind charging fees for commercial filming in the parks was to permit film studios and advertising agencies to purchase as much access and agency cooperation as they needed. Instead of Park managers saying 'NO' to Hollywood studios or Madison Avenue ad agencies when they wanted to use a National Park for purely commercial (and/or inappropriate) purposes, managers would say 'YES' just so long as they got PAID and could retain whatever money (baksheesh) they collected. (Sound familiar???)
Somewhere along the line, this collaboration between the Department of Interior, Park managers, and their commercial customers (business partners?) went astray.
Somewhere along the line the media and the public's right to know got caught up in this fee issue. The result is what you see below. The result is dramatic -- as is the explicit language being used by senior members of Congress.
Opposition to pay-to-play is, finally, coming to a head -- and increasingly doing so for all the RIGHT reasons.
Details from the recent Committee hearing are available online.
Scott
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December 13th, 2007
Land of the fee for photos in national parks?
Interior Department denies permits would limit news photographers
LES BLUMENTHAL; The News Tribune
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is trying to hide its
mismanagement of federal lands by using new permit requirements and
fees to limit filming and photography in national parks, forests and
wildlife refuges, a congressional leader said Wednesday.
“Maintenance in our national parks, listing of endangered species, fire
preparedness and responsible energy development are just a few examples
of serious policy failures by the Bush administration,” said Rep. Nick
Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the House Natural
Resources Committee. “Any hint that this new permit and fee structure
could limit the free flow of public information regarding the very real
consequences of these failures is simply unacceptable.”
Administration officials said there was no effort to limit news coverage.
“There is no intention in these proposed regulations for censorship by
the agencies based on content,” said Mitchell Butler, deputy assistant
secretary of the interior for fish, wildlife and parks. “In fact, we
believe that telling the story of our resources benefits not only our
public lands but the visiting public as well.”
Rahall’s committee heard testimony on the proposed regulations covering
the national parks, U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management
lands and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuges.
The regulations would require a permit and payment of a fee by those
engaging in commercial filming or photography on federal lands. The
only exception would be for journalists covering “breaking news.” When
the licenses would be required and fees imposed would be up to local
land managers.
But critics, including the Society of Environmental Journalists, the
National Press Photographers Association and the Radio-Television News
Directors Association, said the proposals are unworkable. They said the
definition of news is “excessively broad” and the discretion given
local officials is excessive.
In addition, critics said the original 2000 law was simply aimed at
large Hollywood production companies that were using federal lands. It
was never intended to cover journalists working on longer-range
projects, documentary filmmakers or freelancers, among others, they
said.
The Interior Department is in the midst of finalizing the rules.
“The proposal, as drafted, would give Department of Interior employees
excessively broad discretion to define what is and is not news,” said
Tony Overman, a photographer with The Olympian and president of the
National Press Photographers Association. “The result, of course, would
be entirely inconsistent with the government’s constitutional
obligation to avoid defining or regulating the collection and reporting
of the news and with our government’s tradition of openness and
fairness to the press.”
Administration officials defended the proposed regulations and said they simply tracked the original law.
Rahall said the proposed regulations are another example of the “hostility” the administration has shown toward open government.
“Of course there is reason to view the proposed regulations with some
skepticism,” he said. “The Bush administration will go down in history
as one of the most secretive and least transparent in American history.”
Others testified that there have been ongoing problems, saying the proposed regulations won’t help.
A freelance radio reporter was told by officials at Yellowstone
National Park that she would need to secure a permit, pay a fee and
have $1 million in liability insurance before she would be permitted
into the park to interview an expert on wolves, said Timothy Wheeler,
president of the Society of Environmental Journalists. Wheeler said
park officials admitted they had made an error, but he argued the
latest proposals could cause even more confusion.
The policies at Yosemite National Park might be the most “blatant
intrusion” on journalists’ First Amendment rights, said Barbara
Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association.
Yosemite’s policies permit its managers to condition the granting of a
permit for photography on their own determinations that the park “would
benefit” from the increased public awareness, Cochran said.
“Under this standard, how could a journalist ever gather footage for an
investigative piece that exposes a scandal or criticizes the park’s
administration?” Cochran said.
Alaska Rep. Don Young, top Republican on the panel, tangled with
Overman after saying that maybe journalists and photographers should
pay a flat fee to use the parks just like hunters and fishermen.
“I pay $15 when I go into Mount Rainier (National Park) just like any
other member of the public,” said Overman. “Requiring a license amounts
to prior restraint on journalists.”
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