News outlet files suit to access governor's press events

Owners of the news website ABQ Raw allege in a lawsuit that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has illegally denied the online publication access to her press conferences.

The lawsuit alleges that the governor’s office took the action because of ABQ Raw’s online-only format and asks a judge to order the state office to open its doors to the news outlet.

Lujan Grisham’s office excluded ABQ Raw from press conferences “based on their online-only publication format by requiring a periodical publication or established television or radio presence,” the suit alleges.

The case raises questions about what constitutes journalism in the internet era and whether a government agency can make distinctions between news outlets.

Jessica Hernandez, an attorney who filed the lawsuit, said the governor’s office’s created a media credentialing process that allowed it to arbitrarily exclude ABQ Raw from press conferences.

ABQ Raw “are media, and constitutionally, that term is very broad,” Hernandez said Friday in a phone interview. “You cannot pick and choose which media to include or allow based on which media you like.”

The governor’s office has declined to comment on the lawsuit.

“At this time, we have not had an opportunity to review the lawsuit and therefore do not have anything further to add,” Lujan Grisham’s spokeswoman, Jodi McGinnis Porter, said in an email.

The 2nd Judicial District Court lawsuit was filed Oct. 14 by Circled Wagons Management LLC, an Albuquerque firm that operates ABQ Raw, and its owners, Nicholas Layman and Mark Aragon. The governor’s office is the sole defendant. The suit seeks unspecified damages and access by ABQ Raw to the governor’s press conferences.

“The governor’s office claims that they have criteria that they’re applying,” Hernandez said. “But they’re so vague that really it gives a government entity almost complete discretion to still pick and choose, and that leads to selective exclusion.”

ABQ Raw focuses on crime in the Albuquerque metro area. The outlet’s owners, Layman and Aragon, are a familiar sight at crime scenes around the city.

ABQ Raw’s website (abqraw.com) often features salacious headlines such as: “Creep pleasures self near child daycare.”

In 2022, ABQ Raw filed a similar lawsuit against the city of Albuquerque that resulted in a judge ordering the city to include ABQ Raw in all media advisories issued by the mayor’s office, the Albuquerque Police Department and Albuquerque Fire and Rescue.

In April 2023, District Judge Barela Shepherd ordered the city to pay a $1,000 penalty for each instance in which ABQ Raw failed to receive a media alert “contemporaneously with other media outlets.”

ABQ Raw issued a statement on Friday predicting that its lawsuit against the governor’s office will have a similar outcome as its suit against the city.

“Just as with the City of Albuquerque case, we are confident that the court will uphold the First Amendment protection that government cannot selectively exclude media organizations,” the statement said.

ABQ Raw had sought permission to attend Lujan Grisham’s press conferences in 2020 but were consistently denied access, the suit alleges.

In February, the governor’s office sent ABQ Raw a document called a “press credentialing criteria” asking a series of questions. One question asks if the requesting organization is engaged in lobbying or other work “for any individual, political party, corporation or organization?” Another asks if the organization has a periodical publication or airs on television or radio.

The governor’s office sent ABQ Raw a written statement in March, again denying access to press conferences. The statement said access was denied because “ABQ Raw does not have a periodical publication component or an established television or radio presence” and is not affiliated with a high school or university news organization.

The suit alleges that the press credentialing process gives the governor’s office “virtually unlimited discretion” to exclude news organizations from press conferences in violation of constitutional speech and press freedoms.