Freaking out about Justice tapping AP?

We arrived at the north Lakeland, FL, low-income nursing home in the heat of the day, perhaps 1pm. It was blistering' hot. The old man whom we came to meet, a former farmworker, and the woman who ran the place, greeted us in the courtyard. She suggested that we do the interview sitting at a concrete table in the sun. I, the cameraman, was soaked in sweat already, from carrying the gear from the car, so I didn't really care. No lights needed here, so I sat up my sticks, and clipped on the mic. Suddenly a man in a suit walked up.

"I need to talk to this man before you get started."

I did not like his abrupt style. What is wrong with, good afternoon, or excuse me?

I turned toward him and said, "Who the fuck are YOU?" Better for the cameraman than the reporter to be direct. I was more blunt back then, in my mid-twenties.

He presented a wallet from his jacket pocket and introduced himself, adding "F-B-I," separating the letters like that.

I smiled, "You fucking followed us here, didn't you! All the way from Tampa?"

He smirked, very irritated. I did not let him respond. I continued softly, "You know if you listen while we are interviewing the gentleman, then you will know what to ask. I am sure that if you followed us here, then you really don't even know his name." He inhaled deeply. I continued, "Do you!" I pointed behind him. "There is a chair in the shade over there." He deferred. I was helping him. We proceeded with the interview.

We, a two-man local investigative television team, the WTSP-TV Action News I-Team, had been busting the US Attorney's … back, let's say, and were continuing to build a case, after a series and a documentary, that proved that a family was violating slavery laws. Someone at Justice, or in the US Attorney's office in Tampa, specifically, was convinced that we had inside sources. How did they know we were heading to Lakeland? Were they listening in on my reporter's phone calls? Were they literally following us out of the station? I DID have the only unmarked car at the station, a white Caprice wagon, albeit with five radio antennae sticking out of the roof, so it would not be hard to tail. I know that we, in our mid twenties, were proud that the FBI was apparently taking our lead.

Why would we be proud? I've said it many times; if you are really doing your job as a reporter, then the government, or a corporation, or a “target,” will be surveilling you.

Now, to today's point. I have hundreds of journalism friends. Many of them are flabbergasted, beside themselves, shocked, over the Justice Department monitoring the Associate Press. I do not like the shotgun approach that they apparently took with the AP reporters, but I maintain that if you are doing a good job, doing YOUR job, as a journalist, a real member of the fourth estate, then the government will be listening to you, tailing you, even trying to interfere with you.

To be truthful, in my investigative career, I was disappointed in government officials who had not been prepared for my arrival, like a California Health Department bureaucrat we questioned on a series about deaths at state mental hospitals. We fricasseed her. She thought that her pat answers would suffice, and they didn't, because we were prepared.

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, on the other hand, knew how to get info on reporters. When I interviewed him on an investigation into LAPD police dog bites, that included several cases of children killed by their dogs, he and his Public Affairs Officer, William Booth, who I think was a Commander then, had prepared well. They seemed to know which lawyers I had interviewed and had prepped for cases that they thought I might want to discuss. Again, I was impressed, yet, I still managed to surprise him by presenting a deposition that Gates had done a couple of years earlier. He looked at Booth who said, “I told you about this guy.” My source on the deposition had been very careful, because he was very experienced with LAPD, and consequently, even though I too had apparently been under investigation, we still managed to surprise the “J. Edgar Hoover” of local law enforcement. That source refused to talk on the phone, for instance.

So I look at the exasperation of those in news, about the government monitoring reporters. I ask myself why, and who the journos are who so upset, and I quickly realize that they are news managers, breaking news reporters, or virtual spokespeople for those whom they cover, and at the same time investigative journalists are sitting back wondering “What the fuck do you think they have been doing, all along?”

And yes, former farmworker, Edward Chestnut, DID eventually interview with the FBI agent, there in Lakeland, and later he testified along with a dozen other interviewees in our stories, at the trial that resulted in four convictions on slavery charges in US Federal Court, in Tampa.