The press is already under fire at the national level. Now, its defenders worry a bill sailing through the Oregon Legislature gives additional ammunition and encouragement to its enemies.
State law and industry ethics codes already prescribe standards for news organizations to correct their mistakes. But Oregon House representatives unanimously passed a bill that would impose new rules tightening requirements on how and when journalists issue corrections and retractions.
House Bill 3564 continued its effortless glide through the legislative process, following a March 18 public hearing where not a single word was spoken in opposition.
The bill passed on the floor of the House April 17 by a 49-0 vote. Rep. Darrin Harbick (R-Oakridge) introduced the bill, but the only representatives who spoke on it was Rep. Thủy Trần (D- Portland).
“This is a common-sense bill, and I sincerely hope it helps our friends in the media to remain honest in their reporting and assume the best in each instead of chasing juicy headlines about individuals they write about,” Trần said. “In these times, especially, telling the truth about people is critical.”
The April 17 floor vote took five minutes and came after House members spent more than an hour debating whether or not climate change is real, while discussing House Bill 3365. That bill, which would include climate curriculum in Oregon’s public schools passed 32-23 along party lines.
House Bill 3564 will now head to the Senate for consideration.
‘A handy instrument of harassment’
Although he didn’t attend the hearing, Pulitzer Prize-nominated Oregon newspaper editor and journalism educator Steve Bagwell had a number of words in response to the committee’s action.
“It is onerously bureaucratic and burdensome,” Bagwell told Street Roots about the bill after an April 7 decision by the House Judiciary Committee to pass the bill to the floor for a vote. “It will serve as a handy instrument of harassment for those so inclined — and there seem to be plenty of them.”
Chelsea Marr, the president of the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association, or ONPA, also expressed opposition to the bill. At least initially.
“The Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association does not believe this bill should move forward as is and will require amendments,” Marr, who publishes the weekly Columbia Gorge News in Hood River, told Street Roots last month.
Since then, the newspaper association’s lobbyist, Greg Peden, worked with state Rep. Darin Harbick, the bill’s chief sponsor, to tweak the legislation. The resulting amendment whittles down the time people have to demand corrections or retractions to 40 days instead of 60. Under current state law, the window is 20 days after publication.
To be clear, anyone can request a correction at any time. But demanding one within a certain time frame is sometimes part of building a case for a defamation lawsuit. This bill would double the window for anyone who wishes to do so.
It also maintains the current law that requires people to make their demand in person or by certified mail. The original bill allowed them to submit their demand in an email.
After the news association’s lobbyist worked to get the bill amended, rather than killed, the organization’s president declined to talk to Street Roots a second time. Instead, Marr deferred comment on the bill to Therese Bottomly, the editor and vice president of content of The Oregonian and its website, OregonLive. Bottomly, who served on the ONPA board from 2008 to 2017, stressed to Street Roots that she was speaking in her personal capacity and not on behalf of the association.
“I’m glad the amendment fixed some of the more egregious issues with the bill, but our retraction statute is one of the best in the country, and I see no reason for this bill to go forward,” Bottomly said. “The law as-is has served Oregonians well for many decades.”
But the amendment brokered by the news association may have played a role in the bill sailing through the judiciary committee.
“Does that mean the newspapers are good with the amendment?” state Rep. Farrah Chaichi, D-Beaverton, asked April 7 when she heard about ONPA’s involvement.
“That is my understanding — at least the organization that Greg Peden represents,” responded committee Chair Jason Kropf, D-Beaverton.
‘An infringement on press rights’
House Bill 3564 modifies and expands existing state laws dating back to 1972 for investigating and correcting or retracting allegedly defamatory statements. Supporters argue it merely brings the old ink-on-paper statutes into the digital age.
Jane Titchenal of Keizer, an activist who promotes local journalism, said attempts to change existing laws miss the point.
“What committee members failed to grasp was that the original legislation was already an infringement on press rights,” Titchenal told Street Roots in reaction to the committee’s decision. “Any modifications or expansions only exacerbate the original infringement.”
As amended, after the 40-day window House Bill 3564 gives people to demand a correction or retraction, the publisher has two weeks to investigate and determine if the demand is legitimate.
If the publisher decides a correction or retraction is warranted, it must be published in the next edition (in the case of newspapers and other printed publications) or immediately (in the case of digital platforms).
Current law states corrections or retractions in print must be published in “as conspicuous a manner as the defamatory statement.” The bill removes the word “shall” and replaces it with “must.”
Digital platforms must place a link to the correction or retraction on the website’s home page and any page containing the allegedly defamatory statements. The publisher can also immediately remove the statements from the website entirely.
Radio and television stations must air the correction or retraction in the first broadcast after it is deemed valid. In the case of documentaries shown in cinemas, the publisher must present the correction or retraction in the next public viewing.
Existing law already requires publishers to publicly apologize for errors.
Failure to provide a correction or retraction paves the way for the complainant to file a lawsuit against the news organization.
Chaichi told Street Roots she voted to pass the bill out of committee based on her belief that the amendment negotiated by the newspaper association addressed “a lot of” her concerns about the bill.
“The amendment also stated, ‘if a publisher agrees to the retraction,’ which leads me to believe that the discretion to issue a retraction or not will still lie with the newspaper or journalistic entity, that it is not compulsory,” Chaichi said in an email.
Titchenal said Chaichi misses the difference between requesting a correction and demanding one.
Requesting a correction carries no time restriction, she said. Demanding a correction under a government-imposed deadline defies the very essence of freedom of the press, she added.
“There’s no statute of limitation for requesting a correction,” Titchenal said. “Newspapers run corrections and clarifications all the time without lawyers and state statutes getting involved. Why do legislators feel the law needs to bully its way further into a process where it has no business being in the first place?”
“Only a lawyer in need of more business could love a rat’s nest like this one,” Bagwell said.
‘If we make a mistake, we’re going to fix the mistake’
The bill has roots that extend to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Tyler Harbick, the son of Rep. Harbick, who also serves as his father’s legislative aide, didn’t like the way Eugene Weekly described his presence at the riot.
Eugene Weekly editor Camilla Mortensen told Street Roots the newspaper reported on Tyler Harbick’s presence at the insurrection July 25 last year, posting a photo he captioned “Capitol breached lol.”
Tyler Harbick responded in a July 29 post on the Blue River Bulletin Board on Facebook, saying he was an observer rather than a participant. Eugene Weekly reported his response in an Aug. 1 post.
The paper reported his activities during the insurrection again in a retrospective on the 2024 election posted Dec. 12. That third reference drew the younger Harbick and his attorney.
Mortensen said the issue boiled down to the definition of participation. Previous stories had more detailed explanation and context, she said, adding Eugene Weekly Publisher Jody Rolnick decided not to argue the point.
The newspaper ran a correction, published a statement by Tyler Harbick’s attorney Bert Krages and issued an apology.
Journalists own up to misleading or inaccurate information, Mortensen said.
“If we make a mistake, we’re going to fix the mistake,” she said.
Editors also updated the language regarding Harbick, tweaking it to say he was present at the insurrection without getting into the level of his involvement.
Nothing was scrubbed, said Mortensen.
“Everything is still there,” she said. “The photographs are there. The first two stories are unchanged.”
‘Nuance, shading, implication and ambiguity’
Tyler Harbick told Street Roots he didn’t realize he had a 20-day window under existing state law to find an attorney and demand a retraction. Although he looked for an attorney, he said, he abandoned the effort after the clock ran out.
He said Eugene Weekly’s third post about him was the final straw. However, his options were still limited.
“I could only go after that third article because it was in that 20-day window,” the younger Harbick said. “I wasn’t able to go after the first and second article because my 20-day window had expired.”
House Bill 3564 would have helped him, he added.
“That would have helped me in getting the first and second articles corrected, not just the last one,” he said.
Tyler’s father, Darin Harbick, was elected to the Legislature last year to represent rural Lane County. Slightly more than two months after Eugene Weekly’s correction, Rep. Harbick introduced his first piece of legislation — House Bill 3564.
It remains the only bill the freshman Republican has introduced this session. The committee voted April 7 for him to carry it to the House floor.
Rep. Chaichi expressed sympathy for “an average civilian” who may not realize they have been inaccurately characterized in the press.
“Extending the timeline from two to six weeks allows average folks who may have been photographed, quoted, or included in a story to respond,” Chaichi told Street Roots.
“I am unequivocally in support of maintaining and protecting the freedom of the press,” she added. “I also want to make sure that lay people have the opportunity to respond to potential mischaracterizations in the press, whether accidental or intentional.”
Tyler Harbick’s conflict with Eugene Weekly illustrates a fundamental fallacy with the bill, Bagwell told Street Roots — making it clear that government should not involve itself in the inner workings of journalism.
“People outside the profession don’t seem to realize that very, very few correction requests involve a clear misstatement of fact,” Bagwell said. “Most involve nuance, shading, implication and ambiguity — at least in the eye of the beholder — leading him to think someone, somewhere might get the wrong idea.”
Corrections and retractions are not required as often as people think, he added.
“A basis for clarification is more common than a basis for correction,” he said. “But who makes that determination, and on what basis, when this law is invoked?”
‘The line really has to do with lies’
Tyler Harbick told Street Roots the bill does not cross the line set by the First Amendment.
“The line really has to do with lies,” he said. “The free press is allowed to be as critical as they want of anybody as long as they’re being honest about it. When you throw in lies and dishonesty, I think that’s when it crosses the line into not-protected speech.”
However, now that he works in the Legislature, he added the rules have changed slightly.
“I would consider myself fair game,” he said. “I would consider myself a public person now. I think we are fair game when we’re working in the political process. At the time these articles came out, I would say I was still probably a private citizen.”
He added he would still hire an attorney and demand a correction today.
“I think I still have an easier chance of getting damages for defamation than a legislator, but I would say we’re more fair game,” he said.
‘What part of ‘no law’ do they not understand?’
Titchenal reiterated that laws regulating the press are a bad idea and pose a fundamental threat to democracy. The First Amendment states that “no law” shall be passed “abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,” she said.
She cited U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who served on the court from 1939 to 1975, and said in his 1969 autobiography that “no law” means “no law” because “the First Amendment was designed so as to permit a flowering of man and his idiosyncrasies.”
If Douglas were around today, he might have gotten involved in the committee hearing for this bill, Titchenal said.
“Douglas would hand them (committee members) a copy of the First Amendment and ask them, ‘What part of ‘no law’ do they not understand?” Titchenal said.
One of the reasons no one spoke at the March 18 public hearing is that the bill has flown under so many people’s radar, she said. It received scant notice even from the news organizations it affects.
Even though her newspaper inadvertently sparked the bill, Mortensen said she first heard about it from reading Street Roots’ previous coverage. Several people told her the bill was insignificant and wouldn’t go anywhere, she added.
“Well, it’s gone somewhere,” she said.
‘There is so much irony contained here’
Titchenal said the bill should get more attention.
“There is so much irony contained here, in what passes as a piece of housekeeping legislation,” she said. “I mean, it traces its roots back to the lies of the Trump administration but seeks to hold news organizations accountable to the truth.”
That’s the biggest problem with the bill, Titchenal added.
“When journalists are declared ‘the enemy of the people’ by a repressive government that lies on a daily basis, every act of journalism is an act of defiance,” she said. “And every law that regulates the press — no matter how seemingly minor — moves us away from the essential truth: The press should hold the government accountable, not the other way around.”•
(House Bill 3564 modifies rules for corrections and retractions from news organizations. The bill was introduced Feb. 18 and referred to the House Judiciary Committee. A public hearing was held March 18. The committee unanimously passed the bill to the floor of the House April 7 with a recommendation for its passage. The bill passed on the floor of the House April 17 by a 49-0 vote. It will now go before the Senate for consideration — after May 23’s Second Chamber deadline when House bills go to the Senate, and Senate bills go to the House.)
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This article appears in April 16, 2025.