Rolling a boulder up Beacon Hill, for 14 years

Boston Globe

2 days ago

'There was no reason to broadcast it,' Lynch said. 'There was no suggestion of the authorities not responding appropriately. It was used simply for ratings, for entertainment.'
Lynch, who lives in Winchester, spent a career in advertising, and had never engaged in politics before. But that mother's voice moved her to act.
She contacted her state representative, now state senator, Jason Lewis, a Winchester Democrat, with a simple question: Why is this legal?
Lewis sympathized with her concern and filed the first of many bills that would put restrictions on broadcasting 911 calls without consent.
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'The broadcasters oppose it, naturally,' Lynch said.
Every legislative session, the bill gets reported out favorably.
'Then it dies,' Lynch said. 'It doesn't get voted on. The session ends and we have to file the bill again.'
More recently, the bill has been stewarded by
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Under the bill, an audio recording of a 911 call would be released only with the written consent of the caller, or, if the caller objected, by a court order finding that the public's interest outweighs the privacy interests of the caller.
That would create hurdles, and some legal bills, for news organizations, bloggers, and social media mavens. But Lynch believes that's better than the current system, which relies on common decency outweighing commercial or prurient interests.
It's not just broadcasters who have opposed the bill.
'This same bill has been floating around for years, and we've opposed it for years,' said Robert J. Ambrogi, executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association. 'Our position is that in many cases the audio recording is important to understanding what occurred, and the nuance that you don't get from a transcript.'
Hearing the audio helps journalists hold 911 operators and the entire emergency response system accountable, Ambrogi added.
Jordan Walton, executive director of the Massachusetts Broadcasters Association, said his group had not taken a formal position on the legislation, but said in principle its members would oppose it.
'All journalists, I would think, would have a problem with it,' he said.
That said, Walton said broadcasters in Massachusetts are accountable to the public they serve and sensitive to the privacy of individuals in traumatic situations.
'I think our members treat these matters respectfully,' he said.
But Day said placing restrictions on access to tapes of 911 calls, while safeguarding public access to transcripts of all 911 calls, is a fair compromise.
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'Emergency calls to 911 usually occur during the most stressful and distressing moments of the caller's life,' Day said. 'The caller is relaying, in real time, a tragedy or emergency they are experiencing firsthand, with the belief that they are calling for help from first responders, not that they are providing fodder for sensationalist broadcasters or internet scavengers.'
That last part is a key acknowledgement of how the media landscape has changed, and not necessarily for the better, since the first bill was filed 14 years ago. When deciding whether to broadcast distressing 911 calls, you'd like to think most broadcasters would apply a common decency standard, or at least be subject to the deterrent of public outcry if broadcasting such a call was seen widely as in egregiously poor taste.
When it comes to social media, however, there are no guardrails. Anything goes.
'Plug in 'distressing 911 calls' on a search engine and see what you come up with,' Lynch said.
I did. Some of it's ugly.
Day said more than good taste and common decency are at issue.
'The fear that a call might be used in a broadcast or a post can have a chilling effect on the caller's willingness to place the call or to be honest during it,' he said. 'That chilling effect is squarely at odds with the public interest in a robust and effective emergency communication system.'
At least a half-dozen states, including New Hampshire and Rhode Island, restrict access to 911 recordings. Day said the Massachusetts bill seeks to strike a balance between the public's right to know, news organizations' mission to hold public officials and agencies accountable, and the privacy of those making 911 calls.
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The Judiciary Committee has voted the bill out favorably on a regular basis, but it has never reached the full House or Senate for a vote.
In the current session, the committee is still taking written testimony on the bill, and a committee vote has not yet been scheduled.
Having the state's newspapers and broadcasters lined up against the legislation probably explains the lack of appetite among politicians to put the bill up for a full vote of the Legislature.
Lynch sometimes thinks of her cause as Sisyphean, and the thought of rolling the bill up Beacon Hill every session only to watch it roll back down is mentally exhausting. But she won't give up.
'It's going to pass some day,' she said, 'and then I can die thinking I've made the world a little better.'
Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at