Committee approves legislation that would block IHSA restictions on the media

The Illinois High School Association shouldn't be permitted to regulate how news organizations use photographs and video they shoot at basketball tournaments and other high school sporting events, an Illinois Senate panel said Thursday.

The Senate Executive Committee voted 8-1 for Senate Bill 1997, which would block the IHSA from imposing such restrictions on the news media. The measure, sponsored by Democratic Sen. James DeLeo of Chicago, advances to the Senate floor.

An identical proposal, House Bill 4582, is scheduled for consideration next week in a House of Representatives committee. To become law, either HB4582 or SB1997 would have to pass in the House and Senate and be signed by the governor.

The legislation results from a spat between the IHSA and the Illinois Press Association. The IPA has sued the IHSA over its rules governing photos taken at school sports events.

At one point in the dispute, during the state high school football championships, the IHSA denied on-field access to photographers from four newspapers, including the Journal Star of Peoria and the State Journal-Register of Springfield. The IHSA said at the time it was denying the access to newspapers that continued to sell photos online, in violation of the organization's policy.

"High school sports are public events," DeLeo told members of the committee Thursday. "The IHSA isn't (created in) a statute, wasn't created by the General Assembly, wasn't brought to us by (the) constitution. It's an organization. And they're going to tell us what's a public event and what's not a public event?"

DeJuan Kea of the Illinois Statewide School Management Alliance said schools oppose the legislation, in part because they fear they will have to start paying dues to cover the cost of student athletics.

"At the end of the day I think this all comes down to a profit, regardless of whether they want to admit it or not," Kea said.

The IHSA this week proposed a compromise that would let news organizations take and sell any photos they wanted at nearly all high school sporting events, except for the final state tournaments.

Photos from those final playoff games could be given away or sold "at cost," IHSA executive director Marty Hickman told the committee.

IPA executive director David Bennett said that Hickman's comment came as a surprise. But Bennett said the newspapers his organization represents probably wouldn't go along with the concept and instead would prefer to set their own prices for photos.

"The real issue here for us, for the newspaper industry, is that we have a product that's our product, and what we do with it is our business," Bennett said. "For them to say that we can't do that is unconstitutional."

The lone "no" vote on the legislation came from Sen. Brad Burzynski, R-Clare, who said, "I think there's common ground that's out there, and I really have a problem voting for this bill at this time."

Other senators also urged the IPA and the IHSA to work out the problem on their own, without intervention from the General Assembly.

DeLeo said he is optimistic about the possibility of an agreement.

"I think they're getting close," he said. "I think they're getting there."

When Hickman was asked after the committee meeting whether there'd be a photo-related "showdown" in Peoria during this first weekend of the boys basketball tournament, he said no.

"They'll be there, taking their pictures and they'll have their access," Hickman said. "We're not stopping anybody, any legitimate media from being there, taking pictures. We said that to them, in a good faith effort to try to resolve this, we weren't going to ask them to sign any acknowledgment form."

<p align="justify">Adriana Colindres can be reached at (217) 782-6292 or adriana.colindres@sj-r.com.