RALEIGH – In the never-ending tug-of-war between public officials and the news media on issues of government secrecy, I declared sides a long time ago – back when I got my first newspaper job covering government in Nash County. But it was the same experience, more than 20 years ago, that also gave me a tinge of sympathy for the other side.
As a UNC J-School student moonlighting as a reporter for two weekly newspapers in the county, I got my journalistic baptism of fire covering one of the hottest local controversies in decades – a proposed school-district merger involving the separate school districts of Nash County, Edgecombe County, Rocky Mount, and Tarboro. I have vivid recollections of angry arguments, racially tinged epithets, frustrated parents, worried business leaders, and hundreds of residents stomping their feet at an anti-merger rally in a tobacco warehouse.
Much of the time, though, my reporting on the issue had me trying to obtain documents or quotes from wary public officials who were trying not to inflame an already explosive situation. They meant well, regardless of which side of the issue they were on, but in virtually every case their unwillingness to explain their views or release information promptly ended up making them worse off, not better off. They looked evasive, not temperate.
It’s Sunshine Week. As usual, many North Carolina media organizations are commemorating this annual celebration of open government by running stories exposing unnecessary or improper restrictions on public access to government meetings and records. Although I agree with virtually all the points the media folks are making, I also know enough politicians to understand that many of them see Sunshine Week as an excuse for special pleading by media companies that aren’t required to shoulder the same responsibilities that public officials do.
To them, I’d say this: to argue for open government is not to engage in special pleading for the news media. Although some journalists seem not to understand this, the First Amendment’s guarantees of free speech and free press apply to everyone, not just to those who work for media companies. The reference to “the press” is a reference to a citizen’s right to publish and distribute what he wants, not to an industry with special rights.
Moreover, I’d point out that you don’t have to disagree with the policies of a governmental body to want to see those policies enacted in public, with a paper trail that the public is allowed to inspect.
Consider the case of another raging controversy about a North Carolina school district – the fight over forced busing in Wake County. As is evident from past Carolina Journal columns, I generally agree with the direction that the new conservative majority wants to take Wake’s public schools. I think the district’s unpopular and ineffective student-assignment policies were unsustainable, and must be replaced with policies that maximize the ability of parents to decide where their children go to school.
Furthermore, as a Wake County voter and taxpayer I was at least as troubled as the conservative majority was by Superintendent Del Burns’ manifest inability to perform his duties in a professional manner after the voters elected board members with whom he disagreed. His behavior was inexcusable. But by heeding the advice of counsel and deciding his fate in private, the school board majority did neither themselves nor their cause any favors.
I recognize that the need to discuss a personnel matter is a legitimate exception to the open-meetings law. But once it came time to decide what to do about Burns’ refusal to behave professionally, the school board should have taken its vote in public – particularly since it was clear that the outnumbered members would likely leak the gist of the proceedings to the media, anyway.
This is a good example of why public officials shouldn’t always assume that open government isn’t in their interest. Just as I found in Nash County 20 years ago, you can’t defuse political controversies by trying to smother them. You have to work on them in the open.
Or, to change metaphors, show your work. Most of the time, voters will give you a better grade for it.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation