YouTubers arrested on Nancy Guthrie's street say it's a 1st Amendment issue

Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance from her Tucson home continues to grab headlines months after it happened.

Just this week, news outlets reported receiving a ransom note that indicated the "Today Show" host Savannah Guthrie’s 84-year-old mother had died shortly after she was taken in the middle of the night.

But now, there’s another kind of drama playing out outside of her Catalina Foothills home.

Three YouTubers who have been streaming from her street were arrested earlier this month. They face charges like obstructing a highway or thoroughfare and creating a public nuisance. And they’re just a taste of the social media scene that’s still going on in Guthrie’s normally quiet neighborhood.

But should these YouTubers be protected by the same First Amendment rights as journalists who have also been reporting there? Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller has been writing about it and spoke to The Show.

Full conversation

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Tim.

TIM STELLER: Hey, good morning, Lauren.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so most of us have seen this on the news, but since Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, tell us just like what it’s been like outside of her home there in Tucson.

TIM STELLER: I think it’s fair to say it’s been increasingly quiet, but still often people there on the street, by the streamers or even influencers showing up and posing in front of the house. I mean, weird stuff.

The streamers, I should say, you know, not everybody understands even what this is. It’s people who are like doing quote-unquote “reporting” on the Nancy Guthrie case, kind of trying to, it’s kind of a true crime video blog, and they sit there and they will talk on their camera for four, five, six, seven hours. And they may do that in front of the house or they may do that at their own house. So, sometimes it’s just showing up there near Nancy Guthrie’s house, right across the street.

LAUREN GILGER: What do neighbors think about this, Tim? Like it sounds like there have been some angry encounters.

TIM STELLER: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think increasingly over time, they’ve become fed up. Certain neighbors have really gotten angry at them and there have been clashes now and then, verbal clashes, I should say. And they’ve — neighbors have complained to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, which hadn’t taken well, what they did, the thing they did initially quite a few months ago was block off parking on the street there.

We should remember that when this first happened, there was — there were news outlets from all over the world parked or stationed right there on the street, and eventually they cleared that out.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, OK. So when you’re talking about these streamers being live for hours and hours and hours on end here, what do they talk about? Like, is this journalism?

TIM STELLER: Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s a fine line between journalism and not journalism. But I think the thing, the key problem, is that they run out of material. So people, people, you know, they have audiences, communities, I would call them, who engage with the YouTubers and share theories, just share friendship and conversation.

But the thing that one of the things that really gets people going is when someone complains, like a neighbor, or someone comes by and engages angrily with them. That person then becomes like the focus of conspiracy theories like, "Oh, that person must have been involved in Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance," or something, and then they find ways of starting to look up information on them and then they talk and talk and talk about them endlessly because there’s really very little else to talk about going on in the case.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, yeah. One of your news interns there at the Daily Star was caught up in this, right? Just because he was walking on the street there with a press badge.

TIM STELLER: Yeah, right. He walked past some, [Alexander Zabel Jr.] was livestreaming, and Griffin, our intern, walked past with a photographer. And yeah, before long, there’s, you know, everyone’s talking about Griffin, you know. "What who is he? Who does he work for?”

You know, the funniest comment I saw was that his shoes look like the perp’s shoes, referencing the person seen in a video outside Nancy Guthrie’s house the morning or late night she disappeared.

So that’s the kind of thing that happens because there’s really not much going on. And but it is apparently somewhat lucrative financially because they’re able to at least support their streams, if not support themselves fully on this.

LAUREN GILGER: So let’s talk, Tim, about the arrest of these three YouTubers and what they were charged with. One of the YouTubers said after this happened that every journalist in America should be speaking out about this, basically framing it as an issue of First Amendment rights. What do you think about that as a journalist?

TIM STELLER: I mean, you know, I wouldn’t think about it as specifically as a journalist. I don’t think it’s a journalism issue. I think it is a First Amendment issue because there is a question about whether you can stand in a public spot and talk and stream.

That’s a that’s, you know, not necessarily the freedom of the press. It could be viewed as a freedom of the press issue, but it also could just be viewed as a generic First Amendment freedom of speech, freedom of assembly issue. And so, yeah, I mean, it’s, what they do is kind of borderline journalism, if that, but I don’t think it really matters in the sense that it’s a First Amendment issue nevertheless.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, and you write about the fact that they’re not exactly upholding the principles of traditional journalism here.

TIM STELLER: Yeah, right. I mentioned in the column that, you know, one of the four major tenets of the Society of Professional Journalists’ ethics, ethics system is minimize harm. And, you know, it’s just that’s just not something they’re doing. They say SPJ says, "Balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance or undue intrusiveness."

And I think that undue intrusiveness phrase is something that professional journalists maybe take a little more seriously, that is like, when is it time to back off, when is it time to go in and and be a, be a pain, but only because it’s necessary, you know, for the story.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Last question for you, Tim. I mean, you kind of write about this as a community online, right, these people and their followers. But, but it’s almost you describe it as like an us-versus-them dynamic, especially when it comes to the quote-unquote traditional media.

TIM STELLER: Yeah, well, it’s become that because they view themselves as being targeted when traditional news outlets, reporters from traditional news outlets have not. So they view themselves as the people keeping the case alive and in the public eye. The disappearance of Nancy Guthrie has faded from most news broadcasts, but not from their streams. So they view themselves as kind of the good guys in this situation.

LAUREN GILGER: All right, well, leave it there. Tim Steller, joining us from Tucson with the Arizona Daily Star. Tim, thank you so much for coming on appreciate it.

TIM STELLER: Thank you, take care.