As access to public records erodes, more records are deliberately concealed from the public

Successful efforts to obtain public records are
down 18%. (Photo by Wesley Tingey, Unsplash)

While Florida's change in public records access may be more dramatic than some, it marks "a steady erosion of public records laws in a number of states," report Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene of Route Fifty. "North Carolina’s budget bill, for example, recently included language that changes previous open records laws to exempt current and former legislators from any requirements to share documents they create while in office and to give lawmakers the power to decide whether a record should be made public, archived, destroyed or sold."

"The ability of people to get records that are supposed to be made publicly available has been 'deteriorating terribly,' according to David Cuillier, director of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida," Route Fifty reports. "In fact, a nonprofit organization called MuckRock, which consults with people and organizations in their efforts to get public records, has found that about 10 years ago such efforts were successful about half the time. Today, that’s down to about 18%." Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, told Route Fifty: "There has been a consistent move to conceal more and more records from the public. Some states have done so at a different rate than others, but we see this in many of them.”

The lack of access isn't limited to journalists "who have historically been able to serve as watchdogs over government by making Freedom of Information Act requests to get the documents necessary to fully report an article," Barrett and Greene write. “Though journalists often use FOIA, the majority of requesters are not reporters." Michael Morisy, co-founder and chief executive officer of MuckRock, told Route Fifty: “In many places, they are commercial requesters, like businesses that need information in order to make informed proposals for procurement. Then there are think tanks and universities."

Often referred to as "sunshine laws," most states have open records laws, but they can be weakened through exemptions. Barrett and Greene explain: "This has been the case in Florida, which long had a reputation as one of the most open states in the country. Its first sunshine laws were enacted in 1909, one of the first such pieces of legislation in the country. That law has been chipped away with increasing speed since the mid-1990s, and today it has about 1,200 exemptions and at least a dozen more are added almost every year. Of course, some of the exemptions, like access to individuals’ Social Security numbers, make good sense, but many are far more troublesome, like those protecting the governor’s past travel records."

Sunshine Week webinars on March 14 and 16 will discuss how to use government data and bring it to life in stories

For Sunshine Week, coming up March 13-19, the National Freedom of Information Coalition and Uncovered: A Cold Case Platform will present two webinars discussing how technology can help or hinder government transparency. Admission is free, but NFOIC welcomes donations.

At 2 p.m. ET on March 14, data journalist Lam Thuy Vo will present "Igniting Inspiration: Using Freedom of Information to Bring Data to Light and to Life." The Sunshine Week website says: it "will focus on FOI and data possibilities — accomplishments via scraping and reporting using FOI requests." Register here.

At 3 p.m. ET on March 16, David Cuillier, Grace Cheng and Ashlee Fujawa will present "Sparking Discovery: Using FOI and Big Data to Tell Stories, Build Community, and Solve Problems." Cuiller is NFOIC's board president and a University of Arizona associate professor; Cheng is the director of government practice and practical law at Thomson Reuters; and Fujawa is the co-founder and head of community at Uncovered. From the website: "The panel will cover the basics of making open records requests, how to deal with denials, and how to present data in ways that engage and empower the public." Register here.

News Leaders Association is both offering and seeking content to promote Sunshine Week, March 13-19

The News Leaders Association is seeking website content and event calendar submissions for its annual Sunshine Week, held this year March 13-19.

Since 2005, NLA (formerly the American Society of News Editors) has celebrated Sunshine Week to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information.

News outlets have observed the week by producing special reports and series that featured information obtained from open-records access and highlighted the process journalists had to undergo to get it.

Any news outlet, nonprofit organization or public official holding an event to highlight Sunshine Week can submit it to NLA's events calendar by clicking here, completing a submission form online at newsleaders.org/sunshine-week-events or emailing information to: sunshineweek@newsleaders.org.

To submit news stories, editorials, columns, cartoons or graphics for public use during Sunshine Week, email content links to: sunshineweek@newsleaders.org. Please include a brief description and/or headlines suitable for posting on NLA's Sunshine Week web page.

FCC announces over $1.2 billion for rural broadband, and a new program to make sure it's spent properly

"The Federal Communications Commission is ready to authorize more than $1.2 billion in funding through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. Announced in 2019, the 10-year program seeks to expand broadband internet access across rural America. In an announcement spotted by The Verge, the FCC says the funding wave will see 23 broadband providers bring internet service to more than 1 million locations across 32 states," I. Bonifacic reports for Engadget. "Additionally, and maybe even more importantly, the FCC also announced the Rural Broadband Accountability Plan, a program to ensure recipients of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund are properly spending the funding they receive from the public."

"The commission announced in July 2021 that it wanted to "clean up" the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund after it discovered that internet service providers had accepted funds to deploy broadband in urban areas or in places where high-speed internet was already available. Those companies were told to either justify their bids or withdraw their funding requests," Nathaniel Mott reports for PC.

The program aims to increase oversight for broadband funding recipients by doing twice as many audits as last year and doing more on-site audits (especially for large or "high-risk" recipients), Mott reports. Also, for the first time, the results of verifications, audits, and speed and latency performance testing will be publicly available online.

Pandemic has put more public meetings online, but not all have broadband, and virtual meetings may discourage input

When the City Council in Midway, Kentucky, has met virtually during the pandemic, no citizen has signed up to speak during its public comment period. (Jan. 21 photo from the Midway Messenger, which has the same publisher as The Rural Blog)

"It’s difficult to imagine that there have been any silver linings surrounding the deadly Covid-19 pandemic. But there has been one that’s been seen as particularly valuable to people who are concerned with government transparency: Public meetings in which attendees can participate remotely," Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene report for Route Fifty.

Most public meetings were once conducted in person, but the pandemic necessitated an increase in remote gatherings for local and state officials. Many entities are considering keeping a hybrid format even after the pandemic ends so people can come in person or participate remotely, Barrett and Greene report.

However, areas with low broadband access (which are disproportionately rural) may have a harder time taking advantage of virtual or hybrid meetings and making their voices heard, they note. Even in places with good access, the move to virtual meetings may have discouraged citizens from taking advantage of the public comment period. When the city council in Midway, Ky., was in virtual mode (which it just resumed doing due to a rise in coronavirus cases), no one signed up for the public comment period.

Fake meme about Omicron variant illustrates report warning about misinformation and recommending ways to fight it

The resurgence of a doctored image blaming the pandemic on a conspiracy illustrates a report warning that misinformation is a major threat to our society and highlights the critical role of the news media.

"In July, a fake slide deck with the logos of the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum purporting to show a schedule for when coronavirus variants would be 'released' rocketed around social media, racking up thousands of likes on Twitter and Instagram," Gerrit De Vynck reports for The Washington Post. Anti-vaccine influencers cited the image as proof that powerful interests were orchestrating the pandemic.

The image has become popular again recently; it and other false or misleading claims about the Omicron variant have circulated widely on social media in the two weeks since the strain was identified. They serve as an illustration of a recent report from the Aspen Institute's Commission on Information Disorder. "Information disorder is a crisis that exacerbates all other crises. When bad information becomes as prevalent, persuasive, and persistent as good information, it creates a chain reaction of harm," write the commission's chairs: veteran journalist Katie Couric; Chris Krebs, the first director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; and Rashad Robinson, president of advocacy group Color of Change.

"If we want to reduce information disorder, there are structural changes that we can and must make to our information ecosystem, and there are rules that we can and must implement to better govern the decisions and behavior of information platforms and propagators," the commission writes. They recommend action in three broad areas:

• Increase platforms' transparency to users and researchers concerning content, ads, moderation policies and more.
• Build users' trust in the accuracy and reliability of information by supporting local journalism outlets, promoting new norms that include personal and professional consequences for those who spread misinformation, increasing workforce diversity at social media and news media companies, and improve election security.
• Reduce harms caused by misinformation. The federal government should create a comprehensive strategic approach to countering misinformation through education, research and investment in local institutions. Platforms must have features aimed at increasing users' awareness of resilience to misinformation. Also, the Communications Decency Act should be amended to withdraw immunity to individuals and platforms responsible for spreading misinformation.

Kansas state officials hid public information at private firm's request; it's part of a national trend against transparency

The Kansas state government hid large parts of an audit to please a private company. The audit, which cost taxpayers $100,000, "was meant to watchdog about $160 million in prescription drug spending on state employees, though experts say it came nowhere near achieving that, despite its hefty price tag," Celia Llopis-Jepsen reports for KCUR in Kansas City. "Kansas bowed to the auditor’s wishes for secrecy, even though an attorney for the state couldn’t find anything in the report that qualified for protection from public view."

The incident is part of a larger trend: "In Oregon, a city is hiding from a newspaper how much of the region’s precious water Google uses to cool its servers — claiming it’s a Google trade secret. A Utah county refused to show a disability rights center its jail manuals for things such as hygiene and medical care — because the author had copyrighted them," Llopis-Jepsen reports for the NPR affiliate. "Virginia pre-emptively promised Amazon it would redact as much as it could get away with if any citizens asked for public records involving the company — to please the retail behemoth."

State and local governments regularly duck transparency laws by citing private companies' intellectual property rights. "And in the case of Kansas, it effectively outsources the redaction process to private companies that don’t work for the public, that don’t have any legal obligation to follow open records law and that can’t be hauled before a judge for breaking it," Llopis-Jepsen reports.

Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, told Llopis-Jepsen he worries that governments are increasingly allowing businesses control what the public can see: "This is not a Kansas problem. It’s not an Oregon problem . . . It’s an everywhere problem."

FactCheck.org sets the record straight on its funding, and Biden's positions on guns and meat

FactCheck.org has a trio of recent posts worthy of mention here. 

The first involves FactCheck.org itself, or more specifically, a feature called SciCheck launched in 2015 to help the public better understand scientific research, Eugene Kiely reports. SciCheck began a Covid-19 Misconceptions page in December, funded by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky, recently alleged in a tweet that FactCheck.org presents biased information about coronavirus vaccines because the late Robert Wood Johnson II was president of Johnson & Johnson for decades, and because the foundation still holds stock in the company. 

"Contrary to Massie’s suggestion, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — as is the case with all of our funders — has no control over our editorial content. Period. Full stop," Kiely writes. "As with our funding, we are also transparent about our editorial process for selecting, researching, editing and, if necessary, correcting our articles." Kiely notes FactCheck's financial transparency policies and briefly discusses where its writers get their facts. 

Conservative news sources, politicians and social media accounts have accused President Biden of seeking to force Americans to mostly stop eating red meat to help the environment, but that's false, Robert Farley reports. 

The rumor stems from Biden's opening remarks at the Virtual Leaders Summit on Climate on April 22, where he talked about how parts of his American Jobs Plan would help the U.S. cut greenhouse-gas emissions in half by the end of the decade. He mentioned that farmers could deploy "cutting-edge tools" to reduce carbon emissions, but didn't mention beef or cattle ranching (which Farley notes does account for some greenhouse-gas emissions). 

Afterward, British publication the Daily Mail ran a story with an alarmist headline: "How Biden’s climate plan could limit you to eat just one burger a MONTH, cost $3.5K a year per person in taxes, force you to spend $55K on an electric car and ‘crush’ American jobs." The story cites a University of Michigan study showing that Americans could cut its diet-related greenhouse-gas emissions in half by 2030 if they cut their red-meat consumption to about four pounds per year. "But again, nothing in Biden’s stated plans mentions anything about reducing beef consumption," Farley reports.

But conservative news outlets, social media accounts and politicos boosted the signal on the story, insinuating or outright stating that Biden sought to force Americans to cut meat consumption. For example, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., said in a tweet that "Joe Biden’s climate plan includes cutting 90% of red meat from our diets by 2030. They want to limit us to about four pounds a year. Why doesn’t Joe stay out of my kitchen?" On April 26, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack categorically denied that the Biden administration has any plans to reduce beef consumption.

And finally, President Biden "opposes the sale of assault weapons, and he supports a mandatory federal registry and a voluntary buyback program for all legally purchased assault weapons. But a video shared on Twitter by Sen. Ted Cruz leaves the false impression Biden wants to confiscate all guns," Farley reports.

The April 27 video, released the night before Biden's first address to a joint session of Congress, includes a clip in which Cruz accuses Biden of seeking to "erase the Second Amendment," Farley reports. Then the video shows a clip of CNN's Anderson Cooper prompting Biden: "To gun owners out there who say, well, a Biden administration means they're going to come for my guns." Then, the video shows Biden answering, "Bingo."

"Left out is Biden’s full answer, which makes clear he was referring only to the purchase of semi-automatic firearms, or so-called assault weapons," Farley reports. In the interview, Biden explicitly says he would not try to confiscate legally purchased assault weapons.

If it sounds like FactCheck is unfairly coming down on Republicans, we would note that the site has plenty to say about Biden administration claims, including a thorough fact-check of his recent address to Congress (The Rural Blog ran a similar one).

Coronavirus data returns to CDC site, for a limited time, after outcry; HHS system will have more data, but . . .

"On the eve of a new coronavirus reporting system this week, data disappeared from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website as hospitals began filing information to a private contractor or their states instead," Lena Sun and Amy Goldstein report for The Washington Post. "A day later, an outcry — including from other federal health officials — prompted the Trump administration to reinstate that dashboard and another daily CDC report on the pandemic."

The announcement appears to be a win for public transparency, "but with any policy regarding an American hospital, the fine print is essential: The CDC site will only provide the data on availability of hospital beds and intensive care units up to July 14," Matt Stieb reports for New York magazine's Intelligencer. "Moving forward, the American public will have to access coronavirus hospitalization data from private sources."

The administration insists the move is about efficiency, and that the data will remain available to the public. Instead of reporting data to the CDC and the Department for Health and Human Services, hospitals will share information only with HHS through a portal created and maintained by a private contractor. The contractor, TeleTracking Technologies, was awarded a $10 million no-bid contract in April, Jon Allsop reports for Columbia Journalism Review.

For some, the change could have merit. For example, they say the CDC system "was built for tracking hospital-acquired pneumonias and urinary-tract infections, and it wasn’t perfect for keeping up with coronavirus data," Nicholas Florko and Eric Boodman report for Stat. "The HHS system, however, was built specifically to track the covid-19 pandemic and it will compile far more data than just what’s currently being produced by hospitals. Plus, hospitals were already reporting similar data through the TeleTracking system. The federal government has been using those reports to determine each state’s allocation of Gilead’s covid-19 drug, remdesivir."

Many have concerns about the switch, though. "Hospitals are being asked to learn a new data system as they’re struggling to keep up with a raging pandemic," Florko and Boodman report. "Streams of data that the CDC was making available to researchers and the public have suddenly been cut off, exacerbating fears that the Trump administration is trying to stomp out any evidence that the pandemic is worse than ever."

However, the move is consistent "with the administration’s habit of paying private contractors to do research or execute tasks that taxpayers are already paying for: A report from ProPublica published on Wednesday details how federal and state governments paid McKinsey over $100 million this year for pandemic advice, while the White House cast aside the recommendations of its own public-health experts," Stieb reports for the Intelligencer.

Covid-19 hurts small businesses nationwide, including small newspapers in Michigan and likely elsewhere

Businesses nationwide are in dire financial straits because of the coronavirus. Because cash-strapped businesses are spending less on advertising, that's hurting newspapers that rely on advertising revenue. In Michigan, "C&G Newspapers, a chain of 19 weeklies in Oakland and Macomb counties — where virus cases are growing rapidly — announced Saturday it is temporarily suspending print newspaper publication," reports Bridge, a nonprofit Michigan news publication.

The chain said it hopes to resume business with local advertisers soon and plans to resume print publication in two to four weeks. "The C&G announcement came hours after a Michigan Press Association bulletin described newspapers statewide as facing 'immense pressure' from lost advertising during the crisis," Bridge reports.

MPA encouraged newspapers to hang in there, and said the industry may seek government economic relief soon. The organization "said it had 'grave concerns' that disruption of newspaper delivery could threaten newspapers' long-term fight to maintain printed public notices from government bodies – an important source of revenue and transparent government," Bridge reports.

Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog, commented on the notion of government relief for newspapers. "Over the weekend I got a call from an independent weekly newspaper that is facing another cut in pages due to the lack of ads, and wondering if it should solicit support from local governments to keep going," Cross said. "I said that is a slippery slope, but if the governments buy a reasonable amount of advertising to amplify valuable public-service messages, and the editorial department stays clear of the discussions, maintaining an arm’s-length relationship, I would find that acceptable on a temporary basis. And the newspaper should be transparent about it, telling readers that their tax dollars are being used to support it."

3 p.m. ET today is deadline to co-sign statement urging governments to be transparent during coronavirus crisis

The National Freedom of Information Coalition and the University of Florida's Brechner Center for Freedom of Information will send out a statement urging state and local public officials all over the nation to ensure that residents continue to have unfettered access to their proceedings during the coronavirus pandemic:

"As our public institutions must make arrangements to function in this time of uncertainty, changing their open meeting laws and administrative practices that provide more flexibility to public officials yet decrease access and accountability to their residents must not occur. Instead, these institutions need to use this crisis to increase transparency and public access to their proceedings and information."

If you, your organization or publication would like to co-sign the statement, please email NFOIC executive director Daniel Bevarly by 3 p.m. ET at dbevarly@nfoic.org.

Report catalogues groups interested in open government, suggests ways to better access public information

A new report catalogues more than 300 U.S. groups that have an interest in government transparency and provides advice on ways such organizations can further work together to improve access to government information.

The report, released on Monday at the beginning of Sunshine Week, is the second part of a study commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to identify barriers for journalists and citizens in accessing government information and suggest solutions. The first part of the report, released in March 2017, focused on the barriers. This second part focuses on solutions, and gathered data by analyzing the groups and interviewing 53 executive directors.

The report creates a rough taxonomy of transparency groups, dividing them into 12 loose "galaxies" such as journalists, civil societies, state Freedom of Information coalitions, philanthropists, and more, each with their own strengths and wheelhouses. Some of the 300+ groups already work with groups from other galaxies to harness these differing strengths; more such coordination is the key to improving access to government information, the report says.

Click here for a searchable spreadsheet of the groups.

New digital tool aims to help sniff out and keep track of state legislation nationwide that affects government transparency

Just in time for Sunshine Week, the National Freedom of Information Coalition is launching a digital tool meant to help people find and keep track of state legislation that would affect government transparency.

"One goal is to alert the public quickly so advocates can try to stop anti-transparency bills from becoming law or from spreading to other states," Ryan Foley reports for The Associated Press. "Another is to allow journalists and researchers to spot trends, ranging from efforts to expunge more court cases from the public record to preventing out-of-state residents from seeking documents.

Tracking such bills is an increasingly tall order. For one thing, only a handful of states (including Florida and Maine) require bills to state up front that they would affect government transparency, according to NFOIC executive director Daniel Bevarly. "The number of reporters covering statehouses also has dropped significantly in recent years, meaning there are fewer eyes watching legislative action," Foley reports. "Anti-transparency provisions are often buried deep in legislation, some of which may be about unrelated topics, Bevarly said. The new program could act as an early alarm system that blocks poorly written bills from becoming laws."

The software for the tool copies the raw text of bills from every state website at least once a day and dumps it into a searchable database. A pilot program using the software found that 13.6 percent of the 142,000 state bills introduced in 2019—more than 19,000—contained transparency-related search terms like "public record" or "open meeting," Foley reports. Some of those bills weren't really related to government transparency, but Quorum, the software developer that created the tracker, is refining it to provide more accurate results.

For first time since 2009, public-records suits from outside the news media outnumber those from the news media

For the first time since 2009, public-records lawsuits by plaintiffs from outside the news media outnumber those from news media, according to the National Freedom of Information Coalition's biennial open government survey. The news comes, fittingly, on the second day of Sunshine Week, which celebrates government transparency and the role of the news media in ensuring it.

News media have been less interested or able to pursue open-records litigation in recent years, mostly due to lack of money and resources and a decline in the number of investigative reporters who often require legal action to gain access to information, according to the NFOIC.

Many public entities refuse news-media requests for information, drag their feet, or refuse to answer at all, increasingly hoping that the requesters can't afford to file suit. Respondents to the NFOIC survey consistently said that such stonewalling was the biggest obstacle they faced in acquiring public information. Many were also frustrated because they believed that there were few penalties for public officials who violate open-records or open-meeting laws.

Daniel Bevarly, NFOIC's executive director, "cited growing efforts to assist local news organizations with financial and in-kind backing to pursue lawsuits is a response to this trend," according to the press release. "The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Local Legal Initiative and the Legal Clinic Fund from the Democracy Fund are recent examples."

Interior resumes federal coal sales, proposes rule to restrict the types of studies it can use in making decisions

"The Trump administration said Wednesday a resumption of coal sales from public lands that had been blocked under former President Barack Obama will result in a negligible increase in greenhouse gas emissions," reports Matthew Brown of The Associated Press. "Critics accused the administration of producing a flawed analysis of the federal coal program that ignores its broader impacts."

The Obama-era Interior Department banned most federal coal sales in 2016. Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lifted the moratorium in 2017, but in April 2019, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration had failed to consider potential damage to the environment in making that decision, and told Interior to conduct an environmental review of its decision, Brown reports.

"The Trump administration review focused on potential emissions from only four coal leases in Utah and Oklahoma that were sold after the moratorium was lifted," Brown reports. "That’s a small piece of a federal leasing program that accounts for about about 40 percent of U.S. coal production, primarily from Western states that also include Wyoming, Montana and Colorado. Burning that fuel accounts for about 11 percent of annual U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions.

The resumption of coal sales coincides with another Interior proposal to limit scientific studies that can be considered in making decisions. Under the plan, the agency could not consider studies that don't make all of their underlying data public, Rebecca Beitsch reports for The Hill.

"Critics argue that the move, described by the agency as an effort to increase transparency, would sideline landmark scientific research, particularly in cases where revealing such data would result in privacy violations," Beitsch reports. "The proposal, dubbed the Promoting Open Science rule, mirrors a similar effort at the Environmental Protection Agency, which critics argue would block that agency from considering renowned public-health studies."

Interior says the new rule would ensure that it uses only the most reliable data, but Andrew Rosenberg of the Union of Concerned Scientists told Beitsch it's meant to stifle science: "It doesn't do anything to help transparency. It’s designed to restrict the science the agency can use."

Eleven journalism values, most a century old but all still pertinent, with four modern updates, from Roy Peter Clark

By Roy Peter Clark
The Poynter Institute
(excerpted)
I recently discovered in an old journalism textbook a list of 11 suggestions to young journalists on how they might live upright, professional lives. The list amazed me. I could not recall any similar list where journalism values were expressed so well, so succinctly and with such enduring relevance. The list appears as the last words in the book Newspaper Writing and Editing, written by Willard G. Bleyer, perhaps the outstanding journalism educator of his day, and published in 1913. Here then, for all to share, are, not the Ten Commandments, but the Eleven Suggestions:
  1. Remember that whatever you write is read by thousands.
  2. Don’t forget that your story or headline helps to influence public opinion.
  3. Realize that every mistake you make hurts someone.
  4. Don’t embroider facts with fancy; “Truth is stranger than fiction.”
  5. Don’t try to make cleverness a substitute for truth.
  6. Remember that faking is lying.
  7. Refer all requests to “keep it out of the paper” to those higher in authority.
  8. Stand firmly for what your conscience tells you is right.
  9. Sacrifice your position, if need be, rather than your principles.
10. See the bright side of life: don’t be pessimistic or cynical.
11. Seek to know the truth and endeavor to make the truth prevail.
. . .
If you distill from the list its dominant themes, they reveal most of journalism’s key concerns: Not writing and reporting to please yourself or advance your career, but with a keen sense of service to an audience. An understanding that the audience turns to you for information that will enrich them as citizens in the process of self-government. That accuracy is a practical virtue and that the failure to achieve it can have negative consequences. Truth seeking and truth telling are at the heart of the discipline. Your ultimate loyalty cannot be either to special interests or even to your employer. It must be to the public interest. Cynicism corrodes the soul of the journalist and erodes the trust of the public in institutions that sustain civic life.
. . .
I could argue that the list is necessary but not sufficient to fulfill the journalistic mission in the 21st century. I might be tempted, immodestly, to add a couple more points in the spirit of transparency and diversity.
 12. As much as you can, be transparent in your methods, revealing what you know, how you know it, and what you still need to learn.
 13. Remember the limitations of your own experience and point of view. Gather the perspectives of others, especially those too often excluded from public life. (OK, 13 is unlucky. Let’s add two more.)
 14. Be aware of the dangers of false balance in news coverage. Strive for proportionality, submitting key claims to the discipline of fact-checking.
 15. Understand that while a particular story may be true and useful — coverage of a crime — the cumulative effect of such repeated coverage may give a distorted view of the world we live in.
There you have them, the Eleven Suggestions, or the Fifteen Suggestions, or add a few of your own.

Bill would make online access to federal court records free

A bipartisan House bill has been introduced that would make accessing federal court records free to the public, and would also improve document accessibility. It would also be a boon to most journalists and news organizations, who aren't based in cities with federal courts.

"PACER, as the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system is otherwise known, currently charges between 10 cents and $3 for most searches, page views and PDF document downloads," Kayla Goggin reports for Courthouse News Service. "That would change under the [proposed] Electronic Court Records Reform Act, which is sponsored by Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., and Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill."

Collins, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, and Quigley, the co-founder and co-chair of the Transparency Caucus, said in statements last week that the bill would increase transparency and accountability, Goggin reports.

"Lawmakers introduced a similar bill in September but failed to get a hearing," Goggin reports. "The renewed proposal comes after a federal judge ruled last year that PACER fees have been unlawfully set above the amount authorized by Congress."

Ky. State Police try to keep local news media from reporting on investigations until KSP gives them green (blue?) light

Here's another timely story for Sunshine Week, which celebrates government transparency and the role of the news media in keeping the government honest:

A Kentucky State Police spokesperson recently caused a stir when he told two rural news outlets that they need to wait until the KSP issues press releases before publishing anything about ongoing investigations, Will Wright reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The officer wrote in an email to the Barbourville Mountain Advocate and Pineville radio station WRIL:"From this point forward when KSP is working an investigation, you are to wait until OUR (KSP) press release is sent out before putting anything out on social media, radio, and newspaper. No more posting inaccurate information from Sheriffs or anyone else. I don't care to confirm something and then get a release out later. [On] authority of my supervisors, if this continues, you will be taken off our media distribution list."

Jon Fleischaker, general counsel for the Kentucky Press Association, told the Herald-Leader the order violates the First Amendment, and that state agencies cannot withhold information "just because they don’t like what the media outlet is writing," Wright reports.

KSP Capt. Ryan Catron said the police do not plan to withhold information from the Advocate or WRIL, and that the email was meant to encourage news organizations to wait for accurate information before publishing stories.

Mountain Advocate Editor Charles Myrick wrote that that the weekly has a strong relationship with KSP and that while he appreciates the sacrifices law-enforcement officers make to keep people safe, "Part of keeping the public safe is an open forum of communication, and that’s what we do. An attempt to silence the media is not only a breach of the First Amendment, but a slap in the face of any effort to keep our public safe."

Weekly blows whistle when zoning panel uses secret ballot in bid to rezone for big coal mine

McLean County, Kentucky
(Wikipedia map)

Here's a lesson about how a rural newspaper rightly stuck to its guns and insisted on transparency from a local board that wanted to shield at least one of its members from scrutiny.

The Joint Planning Commission in McLean County, Kentucky, voted 7-1 by secret ballot June 20 to rezone 270 acres to industrial for a coal mine, but the McLean County News challenged the vote, saying it had violated Kentucky's Open Meetings Act, "which requires that public agencies keep accurate records of all votes and actions," Stephanie Salmons reports for the News, owned by Paxton Media Group.

Commission Chair Nancy Wetzel denied that any action had taken place in the meeting, but County Attorney Donna Dant confirmed that the vote did take place, but that it "did not carry the weight of law, because it did not accompany a written description of the zoning change or a map outlining the change to scale." That gave Wetzel an excuse to hold a new meeting with a public vote to avoid "any appearance of impropriety."

The coal company, Hartshorne Mining Group of Australia, obligingly filed an amendment with a legal description of the property. On July 20 the commission met again and voted 7-1 to recommend the zoning change; the lone dissenter was revealed to be commission member Tom Howard; he declined to comment on why he does not support the rezoning. The McLean County Fiscal Court, the county's legislative body, which approved first reading of the zone-change ordinance 4-0. Salmons told The Rural Blog that the fiscal court approved the zone change 4-0 on Aug. 4.

N.C. passes bill to move public notice from newspapers to government websites in one county

The North Carolina legislature has passed a bill that moves public notices from local newspapers to government websites in a single county, a move some say makes the government less transparent and targets the local newspaper.

State Sen. Trudy Wade

Republican Sen. Trudy Wade of Greensboro, the seat of Guilford County, has tried to pass similar laws twice before, but succeeded this time by narrowing the scope of the bill, creating it as a "pilot program" in the county only, and attaching it to a separate measure she had introduced that declares that newspapers carriers cannot be presumed to be independent contractors, reports the Public Notice Resource Center.

Under the bill, which will become law by July 30 if not vetoed, court-ordered legal notices will be published on the county website instead of in the local newspaper, the Greensboro News & Record. Other local officials may decide whether to publish their notices in the newspaper or on their own websites instead, according to the article. The bill also allows the county government to charge $10 to $450 for notices published on its site.

Some think Wade wanted to hurt the Greensboro paper for what she feels is unfair news coverage. Rep. Pricey Harrison of Greensboro says that Wade held up other pending Senate bills in order to get her bill passed. "I do think it's her vendetta against the News and Record," he told the paper's Taft Wireback.

Not so, Wade told Wireback: "It really doesn't have anything to do with the News and Record. It has to do with making sure the citizens have free access to legal notices. To be honest with you, technology changes. This is just another example of changing technology and people using that technology."

News & Record Publisher and Editor Daniel Finnegan worries that Guilford County residents will be less likely to see important notices that may affect their lives, saying "We reach far more people with the combination of our newspaper and website -- more than 100,000 per day -- than government websites."