Opinion ID: 161385
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: First Amendment Right of Newsgathering

Text: 34 Smith alleges that there is some sort of right to newsgathering protected by the First Amendment, which Plati and the University violated by declining to provide him certain information about its varsity athletic programs. See Opening Brief at 38. We disagree. 35 It is well-settled that there is no general First Amendment right of access to all sources of information within governmental control. See Houchins v. KQED, Inc., 438 U.S. 1, 9 (1978); see also id. at 15 (Neither the First Amendment nor the Fourteenth Amendment mandates a right of access to government information or sources of information within the government's control.); Lanphere & Urbaniak v. Colorado, 21 F.3d 1508, 1511 (10th Cir. 1994) ([T]here is no constitutional right, and specifically no First Amendment right, of access to government records.). This applies equally to both public and press, for the press, generally speaking, do not have a special right of access to government information not available to the public. See Houchins, 438 U.S. at 11; Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 834 (1974); Saxbe v. Wash. Post Co., 417 U.S. 843, 850 (1974); Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 684-85 (1972); Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U.S. 1, 17 (1965). 10 36 Smith does not point to any Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit precedent establishing the right of access he seeks. Smith's citation to Branzburg is not to the contrary. In Branzburg, the Supreme Court remarked that without some protection for seeking out the news, freedom of the press could be eviscerated, 408 U.S. at 681, and news gathering is not without its First Amendment protections, id. at 707. These statements are prefatory dicta and do not create a right of access. In fact, in Houchins the Supreme Court expressly rejected Smith's suggestion: [The Court's observation in] Branzburg v. Hayes . . . that 'news gathering is not without its First Amendment protections,' in no sense implied a constitutional right of access to news sources. 438 U.S. at 10 (citation omitted). 37 Therefore, we conclude that Smith has not demonstrated that his alleged right of access to University athletic information exists, as a member of either the public or the press. Thus, the district court's dismissal of this claim was proper. 38