Journalist Organization Voices Concern about Malibu Paparazzi Ordinances

• Rescheduled Local Meeting to Include L.A. Regional Task Force Members

BY ANNE SOBLE

Upon learning that the City of Malibu has been presented with five draft ordinances to regulate paparazzi activity in the community, the board of directors of the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists conducted an emergency meeting by e-mail and publicly voiced its concerns.
Board members said, “We are alarmed by the process and product of efforts by Malibu Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich to draft an anti-paparazzi ordinance. The process was conducted largely in private, in possible violation of open meeting laws, by a group at the Pepperdine Law School.”
The board’s statement added, “The product, as revealed this week, includes five draft ordinances that appear to raise serious constitutional issues and restrict not only the activities of so-called paparazzi, but all journalists.”
SPJ board members stressed that “we share Mayor Conley Ulich’s concern for excesses committed not only by the paparazzi, but any news gatherer. But we, along with major segments of law enforcement, believe there are adequate laws on the books right now, which, if properly enforced, could contain reckless activity by any member of the media.”
SPJ has nearly 10,000 members nationally, and is regarded by many as the nation’s largest and most broad-based journalism organization “dedicated to promoting high standards of ethical behavior and encouraging the free practice of journalism [and] protecting First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press.”
Attorney Peter Eliasberg, the First Amendment expert of the Southern California Foundation of the American Civil Liberties Union also “is interested in reviewing [the ordinances] for potential issues of concern.”
A meeting called by Conley Ulich, in her capacity as the volunteer coordinator of the non-official local paparazzi regulation effort, that was originally slated for Sept. 29 has been rescheduled to Thursday, Oct. 2, to not conflict with Rosh Hashanah.
Conley Ulich has invited the members of the Los Angeles Regional Paparazzi Task Force, a non-legislative, multi-city panel that is critical of paparazzi behavior and calls for stringent laws to curb them in the public arena, to take part in the meeting.
That group’s chair, L.A. City Councilmember Dennis Zine, assumes a “bring ’em on” stance toward SPJ, the American Civil Liberties Union, and other groups concerned about possible loss of First Amendment protections.
Zine says any fear of possible litigation over free press and free speech rights should not impede municipal efforts to control what he calls “packs of wolves on the prowl.”
The Oct. 2 public meeting will be held at the Malibu Performing Arts Center (behind City Hall) from 2 to 4 p.m.