‘A sword against journalists.’ Schmitt’s office seeks emails of Mizzou fact checkers

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office filed an open records request targeting the University of Missouri’s partnership with a national fact checking organization, in an unusual attempt by the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate to gain access to journalists’ communications.

The open records request seeks the communications of two University of Missouri journalism school professors and the executive director of PolitiFact. It appears to be focused on a partnership between the Florida-based fact checking organization and the Columbia Missourian, the newspaper affiliated with the university’s journalism school.

David Kurpius, the dean of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, said attorneys at the university are currently processing the request and determining which documents need to be produced.

“We believe in freedom of information, and stand up for the Freedom of Information Act,” Kurpius said. “Sunshine is a good thing. We’ve got to be responsive.”

The Missourian is staffed by students at the University of Missouri and edited by members of the school’s journalism faculty. It receives some money from the university, which makes some of its operations subject to open records law.

Jean Maneke, the attorney for the Missouri Press Association, said the open records request was an attempt to harass journalists by the constitutional officer tasked with ruling on open records requests.

“The person who has been charged with supervising the law is now in a position of decimating it,” Maneke said. “This is not what the law was meant to be used for and it’s just stunning that the person who is charged with litigating for the public on it is now using it as a sword against journalists.”

Schmitt, who has served as attorney general since 2019, has used his office as an extension for his political agenda throughout his term. He has proudly touted his repeated efforts to sue President Joe Biden’s administration and launched a massive effort to prevent local officials from enacting measures to attempt to limit the spread of COVID-19.

The open records request — which is seeking emails that contain 10 phrases including “fake news,” “the future of political reporting” and “political speech” — appears as the latest example of Schmitt attempting to yield his office for political purposes.

The request was filed by Todd Scott, a senior counsel in the attorney general’s office, according to a copy posted online by the Columbia Missourian. It sought communications sent to or from Aaron Sharockman, the executive director of PolitiFact, and University of Missouri professors Mike Jenner and Tom Warhover, who led the collaboration between the university and the fact checking outlet associated with the Poynter Institute.

It is unclear why the attorney general is seeking emails related to student reporters attempting to fact check politicians. When asked what the office was seeking and what it made of concerns that the attorney general was attempting to interfere with journalists, Chris Nuelle, Schmitt’s spokesman, said the request spoke for itself.

“We’re simply trying to get to the bottom of the fact checking process,” said Chris Nuelle, Schmitt’s spokesman, in an email. “We appreciate the University for cooperating with us on this request. We’ll hold off on any further comment at this time.”

The Missourian has not posted a fact check since 2020. The class has not been taught since 2020 because not enough students enrolled in the course.

While the open records request was filed before Schmitt won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, it comes as many members of the Republican Party have taken an increasingly hard-line approach to journalists. Beyond adopting former President Donald Trump’s tactic of calling unflattering news “fake,” Republicans often actively avoid speaking to members of the mainstream media.

Some Republican political consultants have advocated for ignoring the press outright and only talking to the “friendly” conservative media bubble, a tactic currently being used by Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano.

“Our methods and reporting are transparent, and we’d be happy to sit down with the attorney general at any time to discuss our work, or his ideas for continued accountability journalism,” Sharockman said.

While the partnership between the Missourian and PolitiFact dates back to September 2015, the attorney general’s office is only seeking emails after June 15, 2018 (the office originally submitted its request on June 15, 2022 and then amended their language on July 28, 2022, according to a copy of the request posted by the Missourian).

In that time, Schmitt was only featured in one fact check. It examined his claim in December 2019 that “literally 140 people are dying every day of opioid-related overdoses” and determined that it was “mostly true” (Schmitt was off by about 10 people a day).

The fact checks were a result of a class that Jenner and Warhover taught, where PolitiFact editors video-conferenced with the class to explain how the perform a fact check and write them. The students then worked on fact checks that were posted by both PolitiFact and the Missourian. The students focused on Missouri politics, since PolitiFact tends to focus on national figures.

The first politician fact checked by the partnership was then-Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. They’ve fact checked politicians of both parties, including Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver among others.

“We’re independent, we’re impartial, we’re gonna do our verification and we’re gonna do it in a way that’s fair and honest and seeks the truth,” Jenner said. “I can’t imagine that there’s anything that would embarrass the school or, or any of the editors in this.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the organizational structure of the Columbia Missourian.