Fort Worth SPJ: First Amendment Awards

There is in this, surely, a reminder that public officials don’t always know the law, and don’t always follow it when they do. For those of us who practice journalism there is another important reminder: Our rights atrophy when not exercised.

One of our obligations, to the public and to ourselves, is to constantly urge people to exercise their right to know and to fight for it. When the people lose access, we, journalists, lose access. We must keep our constituents aware and supportive on access issues and use that support to keep the flow of information free for everyone. We must tell the open government story, we must preach the gospel of transparency, we must build new legions of disciples. We must become advocates.

That means changing the way we think. We can no longer isolate ourselves from the process.

Many of the nation’s media organizations are more aggressively engaging open government issues. For that, we can thank the Bush administration. Today, there are several coalitions of journalism groups dedicated to making the federal government more open. Mine was established in 2004 to coordinate the FOI efforts of national journalism organizations. Two years ago, we helped establish the Sunshine in Government Initiative, supported by the Newspaper Association of America, the National Newspaper Association (the large and small newspaper publishers), the Associated Press, SPJ, ASNE, Radio-Television News Directors, the National Association of Broadcasters, the Association of Alternative Newspapers and The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

SGI has become a strong voice on Capitol Hill in support of FOIA reform, and it has stopped efforts to extend secrecy through new FOIA exemptions, including one creating a bioterrorism agency that would have been allowed to operate in total secrecy, and another allowing the Defense Department to pseudo-classify any information it chose, about anything it determined might be a target for whatever it deemed a weapon of mass destruction. We also stopped a provision in port security legislation that would have created a new statutory exemption.

Today there are FOI coalitions, for the most part media driven, in some 40 states. The Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas was a major player in getting that movement started in the early 1990s.

We must build and strengthen all of these coalitions because they do the dirty work for us.

We must push back against government secrecy wherever we find it, using all the tools available to us. We must push back in our reporting, fighting the denial of information. We must push back in our writing, letting the public know when their government agencies deny access to records and meetings. We must push back in our commentaries. We must use the institutional pressure available to us. We must use the courts. And ultimately, we must use the lawmaking process.

We must push forward as well, by educating ourselves, our readers and viewers and listeners, the courts and our lawmakers on the importance of freedom of information. We must tell and retell the open government story, and make it resonate.

Because the fight for open government is a contest between competing values.

Open government competes with national security. Personal safety. Privacy. Proprietary interests. Government efficiency. Each is legitimate in its own right, and each has its powerful constituency. Our lawmakers or the courts are constantly being asked to weigh open government against one of these and to strike a balance.

But I believe that in a democratic society, the right to know should be paramount. We need that free flow of information to ultimately ensure our other rights.

We must be both vigilant and proactive. The alternative is even greater government secrecy. And that would be disastrous for us as journalists and for our country.

My own experience, in Florida and now in Washington, is that while journalists care deeply about freedom of information, they do not pay it sufficient reportorial attention, and they are not comfortable getting involved in anything that seems like advocacy, even when that advocacy is vital to protecting the franchise.

One example from my Miami Herald days: When the state Senate in Florida tried to go into closed session early in 1967, reporters refused to leave the gallery and sergeants at arms had to carry several out. Months later, when a sweeping new public records law was enacted without controversy, not a single newspaper wrote about it.

Or take a more recent example from Washington. In 2000, our Congress passed the Official Secrets Act, criminalizing any disclosure of any classified information. It went all but unnoticed by the Washington press corps, which did nothing to sound an alarm or mobilize any opposition. Fortunately, a few people did notice the bill after it had cleared Congress and mounted the effort that led to President Clinton’s veto.

When Sen. Kyl floated his anti-leaks amendment in February, several of us alerted Capitol Hill reporters. We discovered a reluctance to write about it until “something happened in committee.” While that made some sense in story terms, it was disastrous in legislative process terms. That would have made it exponentially more difficult for the blare of publicity to stop the proposal. Surely the Washington press corps knows that.

What we have in Washington today is a very tilted information playing field. Bill Leonard, the head of the classification oversight office, says the current framework leans toward encouraging people to withhold. “Everyone is very mindful of the fact that they can be disciplined, fired, maybe even criminally prosecuted for unauthorized disclosure.” At the same time, no government official has ever been criminally prosecuted, fired or even disciplined for not releasing a record.

Take action:

• Work to get all of your colleagues in this organization, and those in your newsrooms, involved in thinking about ways to push back.

• Become a resource and an advocate. Your professional life is at stake.

• Know what you can do to push back when a public record is denied or a meeting closed. Conduct newsroom training sessions to make sure reporters and editors know the law and how to respond when denied access.

• Make open government and government secrecy a conscious part of everyday reporting. Everyday stories should tell readers how public records and open meetings make it possible to bring them routine information. And when the withholding of information keeps key details out of a story, report that.

• Secrecy should be the subject of enterprise reporting like any other public policy issue. And it should be a continuing issue, or it will indeed continue. Make it a beat. Like public health.

• Lobby for better coverage on secrecy and open government issues from Washington.

• If you’re on an editorial board, make the freedom of information debate a priority. We need a more vigorous dialogue. Particularly step it up at election time, when candidates come begging for endorsements.

• Working with like-minded organizations, develop a strategic plan. Inventory the information the public can’t get, the types of meetings the public can’t attend. Identify the cause of the problem. Do public officials not know the law? Are they stonewalling because no one has challenged them? Do media companies, press organizations or open government advocates need to take them to court? Does the law need to be changed? Develop strategies for change, possibly including: Stories highlighting the secrecy. Editorials and columns. Repeated references to closure in routine stories involving those records. Advisory opinions from the attorney general. Enlisting support from community organizations. Collective media action. Going to court, alone or with other media in the area. Working with your state coalition on remedial legislation.

• Make regular use of FOI audits to inform the public about the denial of their rights.

• Develop and post a set of open government principles to proclaim what you stand for. Over time, those in public office will respond.

• Work with the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. The stronger the coalition, the better it can deal on your behalf with legislators and other officials.

• In most states that have made FOI progress, the attorney general’s office has been vital. The Texas AG’s office has been supportive in recent years. Work to keep that relationship going.

• As an organization, be prepared to engage in personal contact with, you know, politicians. A quick case in point. Florida’s famed Government in the Sunshine Law is based on a model law that appeared in Quill magazine. The SPJ chapter in Gainesville clipped it and gave it to a local legislator, urging him to sponsor such a bill.