In the midst of the U.S.-led war against terrorism, the media have been too complacent as the Bush administration curtails access to public information, according to a noted media expert.

“One of the questions we have to ask is why the news media are pulling their punches post-September 11,” said Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Kirtley will be among the featured speakers at Wednesday’s William S. Cohen Papers Forum titled “The Media Threatened? Protecting the Free Flow of Information” at the University of Maine. The free and public forum is scheduled for 1 to 4 p.m. at Minsky Recital Hall.

In a recent telephone interview, Kirtley suggested several reasons the media, in her estimation, have been reluctant to challenge restrictions and demands placed upon them by the current administration in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

“Are they afraid [U.S. Attorney General John] Ashcroft will accuse them of aiding and abetting terrorism? Are they worried about readers if they criticize the government too much?” she asked, regarding the media’s recent lack of vigor in once-robust fights against closed detention hearings and government subpoenas seeking access to a journalist’s confidential sources.

The attempt to balance national security and the free flow of information in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks has focused attention on the historically contentious relationship between government and the press.

Stephen Bates, an attorney who formerly worked in Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater Office of Independent Counsel, has written widely about the relationship.

“Both believe their work serves society, a belief (however justified) that sometimes engenders self-righteousness, obstinacy and hypersensitivity,” he wrote in his 2000 research paper, “The Reporter’s Privilege, Then and Now,” which he will present at Wednesday’s forum. “The battle … demonstrates not only how much journalists and prosecutors differ, but also how much they are alike.”

Bates will deliver the keynote address at the forum.

His talk will be followed by three panel presentations – Kirtley’s “The Role of the Citizen-Journalist in a Democratic Society”; “The Prosecution’s Point of View,” by Stephen Higginson, assistant U.S. Attorney from Louisiana who has litigated relevant cases; and “From the Field” by Richard Dudman, an independent journalist who worked 31 years for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The forum will conclude with presenters engaging the audience in a discussion, followed by a reception.

The forum will use Cohen’s interest in media privileges and related developments as the basis for a discussion of current issues – the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. Patriot Act and embedded journalists covering military activities.

“The debate over confidential news sources, taken up by Cohen and other members of the House Judiciary Committee in 1973, continues,” said Paige Lilly, UMaine’s Cohen archivist and the lead organizer of the forum. “It’s a complex issue with legal and societal implications affecting our interpretation of the Constitution.”