Publisher's journal: Free speech needs day of celebration

I’ve been a journalist most of my life. So I have run afoul of the authorities several times when it comes to First Amendment issues.

I guess the first time I was maybe 10 years old … I was editor of the Stevens Family Gazette.

It had a circulation of six – one for me, my mother, my dad and three siblings, created on six hand-written loose leaf notebook pages.

It was full of news relevant to its readers.

For example, I always interviewed my mother for the supper menu. She knew well in advance what we were having to eat each night so I had the scoop on fish sticks night, chicken-fried steak night and whether she was serving those awful green peas that I could only stand to eat if they were buried in mashed potatoes.

And of course I tried to cover family news, which is how I ran into trouble with the law.

I was outside, probably watering or feeding my dad’s pigs, which was mostly what I did my first 18 years on Earth.

When I came in, my sister Brenda was hollering and storming around the house.

I asked my little brother Randall what happened.

“Brenda got a whipping,” he said.

But he didn’t know why.

So I asked my sister Debbie. She didn’t know why either.

I asked my mother, who said, “That’s none of your business.”

And so I approached Brenda in a way I thought was fairly non-confrontational: “So, I want to get your side of the story before I write anything for the Stevens Family Gazette.”

She said something about me being a stupidhead and threatened physical retaliation if I wrote anything about her situation in my stupidhead newspaper … and then she tattled on me.

My mother, the owner of the Stevens Family Gazette, told me there would be no story or there would be no more access to paper or pens.

That’s when I learned the freedom of the press belongs to the owner of the press. And I learned there could be consequences for reporting the news.

Students at Eastern New Mexico University last week celebrated First Amendment Day. I told them that story and others in which my rights to free speech have been challenged through the years. (I got kicked out of a church in Ruidoso and I’m pretty sure the CIA has a file on me somewhere. Both stories for another day.)

None of my confrontations with authorities caused me to fear for my life, but more than 300 working journalists have been killed in the past five years worldwide.

Increasingly, we are seeing journalists killed outside war zones – for reporting facts, for expressing opinions, and just for working at media organizations that report facts and express opinions.

That’s according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which promotes press freedom internationally.

I think journalists are not often killed on the High Plains or in the United States because freedom here is valued by most people, and a high priority for many.

We cannot take it for granted. We should celebrate First Amendment Day every day. It’s the foundation on which all of our freedom from government rests.

David Stevens is publisher of Clovis Media Inc. Email him at:

[email protected]

Author Bio

Do you have a question?
A comment you'd like to see published?
Or maybe a story idea for a future edition?

— Please email the publisher: [email protected]