Senate Ponders Audit of the Press Corps

Senators took aim at reporters who cover them and collect speaking fees to talk about it in a measure that could lead to financial disclosure requirements for journalists.

The Senate voted, 60 to 39, to “consider a resolution” that would require those with Senate press credentials to file annual financial disclosure statements with the secretary of the Senate.

“From my point of view, the members of the media need to adopt a position regarding honoraria that reflects some common sense,” said Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), who proposed the plan Thursday.

He noted that under pressure from the public, members of Congress adopted rules prohibiting their acceptance of honorariums.

If his non-binding “sense of the Senate” resolution continues through the long legislative process and becomes law, journalists who want press cards to cover the Senate would have to report all sources and amounts of earned income.

Newspaper, radio, TV and photo journalists would be covered.

About 6,700 journalists have credentials allowing them to move freely through the Capitol, obtain reserved seating at hearings and work in space adjacent to the House and Senate chambers.

These journalists include some of the highest paid TV network, magazine and newspaper reporters in the business, some of whom receive additional income from speeches they give to conventions or meetings of special-interest groups. The disclosure of such fees has been a subject of dispute among reporters for some time.

Nevertheless, reaction to the Senate vote was universally negative among the reporters present in the gallery at the time.

“This is clearly an assault on the freedom of the press,” said Mike Christensen of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, who chairs the Standing Committee of Correspondents that accredits daily print reporters covering Congress.

“A reporter’s qualifications, income and outside interests are matters between that reporter and his or her publisher or news director. They are not the business of the U.S. Senate,” Christensen said.