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“We’ve got this great law, but no means to enforce it other than through the courts.”
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Fifty-three deaths in the Virginia corrections system, 17 closed investigations and not a shred of information released to the public. There is something wrong with this picture, and it lies with the Board of Corrections itself, which establishes its own policies as to what information to release, if any.
The News & Advance
Residents’ lack of awareness about the larger thinking and strategic goals of their municipal officials shows two things: • What a poor job many municipal governments do of explaining themselves. When residents only learn about major local government decisions after the fact, especially on social media — where out-of-context comments and bias masquerade as moral outrage — it’s only natural that they feel hoodwinked. • How little effort residents make to understand how their local governments operate. They complain that they’re in the dark, but some of that darkness is of their own making. They don’t take the time to use the reliable resources available to them to stay informed. Instead, they rely on others to tell them what’s going on. And incivility is only increased when some residents or opinion columnists are more inclined to express negative, knee-jerk reactions than they are to do a little homework before jumping to conclusions.
Chris Bonney, The Virginian-Pilot
BREAKING NEWS: The Free Lance–Star believes University of Mary Washington’s student newspaper has served a vital purpose over the years. It also believes rain is wet. More details as they become obvious. A student newspaper is put together by students who are learning about journalism. Could some stories be better written? Of course. Are there typos, misspellings and grammar violations? No doubt. But in the process, these students are learning how to think issues through, ask tough questions and organize their information in an understandable way. Covering the news on campus helps teach them that good journalism never looks the other way. It studies the people and institutions its serves and reports the good and the bad, as fairly, accurately and tastefully as it can. The entire student body benefits when campus journalists are able to report the facts as they see them, without anyone telling them what to believe or what to accept as the truth.
The Free Lance-Star
The Holy Grail for government transparency is making it easy and simple for citizens to know what their government is doing and how it arrives at its decisions. We’ve always believed this can be achieved, in part, by providing access to public records. Of course, transparency isn’t open-ended. Every state has statutes clarifying what information must be made public and what information should be kept sealed. However, in recent years there’s been a steady chipping away at the public’s right to know. “This is a trend,” says Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, a Florida nonprofit that advocates for the public’s right to oversee its government. “It’s not just coming through legislation, but also through the agencies.” Even Florida, long known for its open public records law, has begun pulling back. The last time a systematic count was taken, the state had allowed for over 1,100 exemptions in which information could be concealed from the press and public. What’s more, although the state’s law is expansive, there is no straightforward way to make sure it is implemented. “We’re really stuck,” says Petersen. “We’ve got this great law, but no means to enforce it other than through the courts.”
Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene, Governing
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