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Oregon officials reportedly asked local journalists to be investigated for contacting government employees with their e-mails and personal phone numbers after hours.
Since the allegations describe relatively routine duties of a journalist's work, the newspaper does not back down.
The Zaitz, publisher and editor of Malheur Enterprise, has denied any reprehensible behavior on the part of his staff, after a Malheur County attorney went to Sheriff Brian Wolfe with allegations that which journalists have violated the law by using the personal details of the managers to call them and send them by e-mail. them outside office hours.
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"Suggesting that professional journalists behave like criminals when they collect vital information for the community seems to be an effort to silence and intimidate the Enterprise," Zaitz said.
The company was investigating Greg Smith, lawmaker of the Republican state and director of the Malheur County Economic Development Department, about potential conflicts of interest related to government contracts.
Smith had apparently asked the newspaper to limit requests "on office hours" and send only an e-mail to a designated county address. "It's not appropriate for you to send emails to employees with the help of their personal email accounts on weekends," Smith told the newspaper.
Amidst these objections, County Attorney Stephanie Williams told the Enterprise that she had contacted Sheriff Wolfe to find out "there was an offense to investigate when The phone numbers and e-mail addresses of a county employee were used, while we had asked someone to stop calling or contact on county business on a personal phone or email. "
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As of Monday, the sheriff's office had not yet decided to launch an investigation. Fox News contacted Wolfe on Tuesday morning, but he did not immediately respond.
According to the law, "an appellant commits an offense of telephone harassment when he intentionally harasses or annoys another person". The company noted that, technically, Smith was not a government employee, but a private contractor, and that he had already given what he had said. was his "personal" phone number at a public meeting and said that people could call him "24 hours a day, 7 days a week".
It is not known if other people employed by the county have lodged a complaint. Fox News has contacted the company for additional details.
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Last week, Smith issued a statement in response to the Enterprise Inquiry, which he described as "several months of vendetta". He said that "over the past six months, my staff and I have been subjected to numerous phone calls, hostile emails at all hours of the day and unwanted visits to the office, I am increasingly confused with the obsession of Malheur Entreprise with the economic development department of our county.
On Monday night, Zaitz drew attention to what he described as an ironic twist of events. After the Enterprise filed a public registration application, the same county agency that had been complaining about emails after normal business hours had sent its confirmation notice on a weekend.
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