A coalition of seven press freedom and civil liberties organizations has challenged Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s administration over added legal review of some reporters’ inquiries, saying the process could unfairly affect news organizations connected to the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the governor. Moore’s office rejected the allegation of a broad refusal to respond and said state agencies continue to provide answers.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation and six other organizations sent Moore a letter dated Oct. 13. The coalition said Maryland agencies had referred routine questions from reporters at Sinclair-affiliated outlets and The Baltimore Sun to legal counsel before responding. The groups argued that journalists should not receive different treatment because of a dispute involving the ownership of their outlets.
The review arose after David Smith, executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group and majority owner of The Baltimore Sun, filed a defamation suit against Moore in July. Agencies have cited Smith’s lawsuit in written replies to reporters, according to the account of those exchanges in the supplied material. The lawsuit was filed by Smith personally, not by the news organizations whose reporters’ inquiries were subject to additional review.
Smith alleges that Moore made false and damaging statements about him during a television interview, including comments Smith understood to imply a connection to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Smith says the remarks went beyond political criticism and amounted to defamation. Moore has criticized Smith’s ownership of The Baltimore Sun, accusing the newspaper’s leadership of promoting a political agenda aligned with President Donald Trump.
In its letter, the coalition urged Moore to tell state agencies that the lawsuit is a personal matter and should not become a basis for routing media requests into prolonged legal review. The groups also characterized the practice as retaliation against outlets the governor dislikes. Those are the coalition’s allegations; Moore’s office denies that the state has imposed a blanket refusal to engage.
Ammar Moussa, Moore’s senior press secretary and director of media strategy, told Fox News Digital that the letter’s central premise was false. He said state agencies and the governor’s office had answered dozens of questions from Sinclair outlets during the preceding week and said the outlets could share the responses.
Moussa described legal review of inquiries as due diligence because Smith had sued the governor. He said the lawsuit did not determine how the state protects itself and maintained that agencies were continuing their work for Maryland residents.
The dispute has drawn comparisons to federal press-access controversies. Moore criticized Trump during a Sept. 20 appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” objecting to the president’s decision to bar reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. Moore said then that Trump was treating the Constitution as though it were a suggestion box because he disliked the coverage.
Seth Stern, the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s chief of advocacy, said in a statement accompanying the coalition’s letter that Moore’s criticism of Trump was inconsistent with the conduct the groups allege in Maryland. The coalition’s members include the Committee to Protect Journalists, PEN America, Reporters Without Borders and the Society of Professional Journalists. Their letter compared Maryland’s additional scrutiny of some inquiries with restrictions they said the Trump administration had placed on certain White House reporters.
The materials describe conflicting accounts: the organizations say some requests are being routed to lawyers in a way that risks obstructing reporting, while Moore’s office says review is limited and responses continue. They do not establish whether the legal review has delayed or prevented particular answers.
