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January 18, 2007
In the Pulse: Three for One
First, read Angela Tant's article.
Then, read Bill's editorial.
Now, you done? Here's my stuff:
Rejecting FOIA - A look behind government’s closed doors
Something must be done about the tendency for local governments around the state to ignore open records law. Disturbing accounts by frustrated journalists indicate a widespread problem, as prevalent in urban centers as in rural counties. There is a certain likelihood that ignorance plays some part, but this cannot be a catch-all excuse. In fact, a lack of understanding is the easier deficiency to correct. Often, a request for public information is willfully denied by those who should know better. Legally preferable, but no less frustrating, techniques include providing so much information (related or not) that the requester simply cannot overcome resource constraints embedded in going through it all.
Tennessee isn’t uniquely victimized by this phenomenon. The Associated Press, together with newspapers in several cities, conducted an experiment last fall in Virginia. They had undercover reporters pose as “regular” citizens and request information from municipal agencies that should be available, by law, to anyone. In one paper’s experience, over half the requests were denied. A concurrent part of the experiment asked for emails that had been sent and received by government officials. Across the state, 42 percent of these requests were denied, though 100 percent of them were considered public information. My source for this bit of news was part of the so-called “alternative press” (a website named Martinsville Daily).
Here at home, a television anchor in Memphis confided on his LiveJournal page about the difficulty getting even routine requests for information processed. Here’s where we start finding some promising solution ideas. The station is taking a fantastic new approach: videotaping such encounters with officials, and showing the results to viewers on their website. I wonder if we could get any Chattanooga media to do the same? After what happened last year to a reporter who was “banned” from City Hall and then left undefended by his employer, I wouldn’t count on the daily paper; but what about one of the TV stations or our talk radio guys?
We have a duty to verify that the persons (s)elected to do a particular job are indeed on task; and our rights to information supporting such verification are enumerated by law. The average citizen may not have time to document the requests (not to mention to sift through the haystack that is returned), so we depend on journalists, of both Old and New Media, to access, compile, and present their findings.
I enthusiastically support the aforementioned television station’s method of publicly embarrassing officials who obstruct public awareness, whether deliberately or ignorantly, as neither is tolerable; and I hope the idea catches on here.
Ethics Class
The General Assembly has time before the May bottleneck to get in a little schooling. They’re going to a class taught by the new ethics commission’s executive director, Bruce Androphy. It’s interesting, though: this is the body that created the new legislation and the new commission, yet they need to be taught a class on what it all means. Politics editor Jennifer Peebles, blogging at the Nashville Tennessean, wonders, “So, who will be forced to sit in the corner and wear a dunce cap?” and “Will anyone flunk out?” There’s little need to offer our suggested answers, though it would be mildly entertaining.
The other side of this is the agony suffered by the many honest legislators who are forced by the actions of others to sit through this remedial course. Perhaps they can spend the time figuring out a way to make the fancy legislative votes database they get to use accessible to the rest of us. You read about that, right? More potential abuses of open government laws are apparently being uncovered.
Done with Committees
An update on state and local government this week wouldn’t be complete without a reminder to watch what happens in the various committees and subcommittees where bills are first vetted. The House committee chairs are all filled, and some appointments are still being considered in the Senate. This isn’t the place to list all the names and responsibilities, but will serve as notice that anything that doesn’t look quite right as the session transpires will be vigorously discussed in these pages.
Pulsations | By joe lance | 08:23 PM