Blog Control Acts Author Noel Hamiel Enters SD Newspaper Hall of Fame

Last updated on 2013.04.24

If any of you see reason why these two should not be wed, speak now...

The South Dakota Newspaper Association is inducting longtime newspaperman Noel Hamiel into its Hall of Fame this month. I herewith tender my official protest, or at least least my official asterisk, to Hamiel's exaltation.

SDNA President Lucy Halverson says her organization is bestowing this honor on Hamiel because he "has had a positive, powerful impact not only on the newspaper industry in South Dakota, but throughout our state as well." However, during his two-year tenure as a Representative from District 20 in the South Dakota Legislature, Hamiel sought to have a negative impact on that online citizen journalism that complements and competes with his industry.

Hamiel was the prime House sponsor of the 2010 Blog Control Acts. This vague, sloppy legislation would have imposed onerous legal burdens on bloggers and other citizens using the Internet to share news and commentary. Hamiel's two bills would have required bloggers and others to keep detailed records of every person who visited their websites and created new legal liabilities for folks who maintain websites that allow comments. These record-keeping requirements and legal risks would likely have shut down blogs and chilled online speech across South Dakota.

Hamiel disingenuously claimed he was simply trying to put online media and traditional press on a level playing field, while he blocked efforts to allow online media to compete with the traditional press as outlets for public notices. His confused and inconsistent rationalizations for his Blog Control Acts were as shakily revealing of ignorance of and spite toward online citizen journalism as the defenses this year of HB 1234 were of K-12 education.

Hamiel's legislation failed in committee. The South Dakota Legislature has since followed the advice and counterproposals of various bloggers and stayed out of trying to fix an unquantified problem that must not have been as pressing as Hamiel pretended.

In advocating the Blog Control Acts, Hamiel came across as an advocate for one special interest, the newspaper industry, seeking to impose chilling burdens on the free speech of others to preserve his industry's competitive advantage. I suppose if you are the newspaper industry, that's plenty of reason to honor one of your fellows.

I know my protest is thin. I'd try to phrase it in terms of the newspaper association's bylaws and specific Newspaper Hall of Fame qualifications... but, predictably, one can't find that information on the SDNA's website or on the website of the SDSU Journalism Department, which keeps the Hall of Fame plaques and records. And even if I could, Hamiel's réumé contains all sorts of other evidence that he's a generally nice guy who has served his industry and his community well.

But it bears remembering that Noel Hamiel supported significant First Amendment restrictions on the online speech of all South Dakotans. Such advocacy against the First Amendment warrants at least an asterisk on Hamiel's nice new plaque in the Newspaper Hall of Fame.