Tennessee Star Editor No Longer Held In Contempt Over Stories Regarding Covenant School Shooter’s Writings
Image Credit: @FOXNashville / X
The Tennessee Conservative [By Adelia Kirchner] –
Monday’s show cause hearing, requiring the parent organization for The Tennessee Star, Star News Digital Media, to defend itself in court following the publishing of several stories on The Covenant School shooter’s writings, did not go as some expected.
The hearing turned out to be less of a platform for showing cause and more of an opportunity for the chancellor to “get the lay of the land” in order to determine if Star News Digital Media would need to defend itself at a later date.
CEO of Star News Digital Media and Editor-In-Chief of The Tennessee Star, Michael Patrick Leahy, appeared in court following an order for a show cause hearing rolled out by Tennessee Chancellor I’Ashea Myles only about a week prior to the court date.
Myles is the judge overseeing the underlying public records case involving The Covenant School shooter’s writings.
Leahy faced this court order following his publishing of several stories concerning The Covenant School shooter’s writings after obtaining 80 pages of them from a source.
“I was shocked,” said Deborah Fisher, Executive Director of The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government. “I thought here you have a judge that looks like she is threatening to put a news media organization or editor in jail on an idea that he somehow violated her court orders when he published material that he got legally.”
But when Leahy showed up to court this week with America First Legal attorney Nick Barry and First Amendment attorney Daniel Horwitz by his side, the hearing took a different direction as Myles stated that she just needed to hear from all parties involved in the underlying case to get a better understanding of the situation.
“Before I can go on, I need to understand if there is a live case in controversy for this court to actually rule upon, or if there have been such a significant change in the underlying facts of the case, in essence rendering the opinion moot,” said Myles.
Going into the hearing, Horwitz maintained that Myles’ court order violated Tennessee’s Shield Law which protects journalists from being ordered to reveal or discuss their sources regarding a published story.
He also argued that Myles’ order contravened contempt law, deprived The Tennessee Star of due process and was unconstitutional.
“I don’t want reporters going to jail for doing lawful reporting,” said Horwitz. “That’s why we were here today. That’s what we were concerned about.”
During the hearing on Monday, Horwitz was told multiple times by Myles that his arguments in defense of Leahy and Star News Digital Media were simply not ripe yet because she didn’t have all the information yet.
Myles stated Monday that she was initially ready to issue her 60-page ruling on the underlying public records case last week but after learning that additional parts of the shooter’s writings had been circulated, she ordered the show case hearing and will be issuing a separate ruling on next steps for the case.
Myles added that once she is able to issue that separate ruling, certain documents that were “previously filed with the court” may be “ripe for adjudication.”
About the Author: Adelia Kirchner is a Tennessee resident and reporter for the Tennessee Conservative. Currently the host of Subtle Rampage Podcast, she has also worked for the South Dakota State Legislature and interned for Senator Bill Hagerty’s Office in Nashville, Tennessee. You can reach Adelia at adelia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
Good! Lucifer’s dimmercrap “judges” NEED reigned in!
“ Myles stated Monday that she was initially ready to issue her 60-page ruling on the underlying public records case last week but ….”
But the underlying public records case has been brewing for a year, and Myles just so happened to be finally ready to release her (oh, let’s just make up a number that sounds good … how about 60?), uh, 60-page report! Gee, oh golly, Leahy messed up my planned release date. Oh well, back to the drawing board. Methinks the judge was just taking the opportunity to cover up her laziness. And continue the government-sanctioned coverup of the contents of the Covenant School shooter’s writings.
I wager a dollar to a diet Mountain Dew that the judge has published N-O-T-H-I-N-G and spoke a falsehood in an attempt to cover for her laziness and ineptitude. She was a rank amateur when she won the election, and it seems that she has not improved. She frightened NO ONE.
The judge is playing out her role in this coordinated coverup of the evil forces that lurk in Nashville and the names of the people who slither through this realm.