SPJ: Phoenix, Arizona Chapter

A herd of bison walk along a road in Yellowstone National Park. Image by Luke Boelitz from Pixabay

A coalition of groups led by the Society of Professional Journalists is urging the U.S. Department of the Interior to reconsider an internal policy prohibiting employees from communicating about deaths or serious injuries in national parks, SPJ announced in an Aug. 12 statement. 

In an Aug. 12 letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and select U.S. senators in states with the most national park visitors, the coalition raises concerns about the policy’s implications for freedom of information, public safety and government employees’ First Amendment rights, SPJ said. The National Park Service memo restricts “all Interior communications involving fatalities, suspected fatalities, serious injuries, or emotionally sensitive incidents.”

In the statement, the groups — which include the Society of Environmental Journalists and PEN America — state that the policy “stifles the free flow of information, keeping pressing information about our public lands from Americans while also potentially violating public employees’ First Amendment rights.”

The letter cites recent bison attacks at Yellowstone National Park as an example of the memo’s potential effects.

Read the statement and get a link to the letter here.