Government more open than media

By: JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Friday, March 18, 2005 12:04 AM PST ∞

It's been a gluttonous week for those who like their irony in huge, heaping mounds.

A host of media organizations have declared this week to be "Sunshine Week" ---- and are urging readers and viewers to support laws that will provide for more openness in government. Efforts are being made to get new laws passed requiring the various branches and levels of the government to make nearly all of their workings public. Those security measures passed in response to 9-11 and the war on terrorism that restrict access to government documents are being opposed, with demands that these new rules be rolled back.

What makes the above so delicious is that at the same time that these media groups are pushing for more openness in government, they are also pushing for more secrecy in reporting.

Most media organizations ---- including this newspaper ---- are currently supporting passage of new state and federal "shield" laws that would allow reporters and editors to keep their sources secret. Most of these proposed shield laws go so far as to exempt members of the media from the normal rules governing witnesses in legal cases.

Adding to the irony is the fact that it's not just government agencies that the media want to open up to greater scrutiny. One of the sponsoring agencies of Sunshine Week is The Associated Press, the largest, most powerful news syndicate in the world, and in an interview published this week, the president of AP argues that recent privacy laws are also harmful to the free flow of information.

Look, open government is undoubtedly a good thing ---- something we can all agree on.

But what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and every argument in favor of more open governance can also be applied to the media ---- which in many cases are nearly as powerful and influential as the government bodies they cover.

Then there's this: Shield laws create a wedge between the media and our readers and viewers.

The biggest argument in favor of Sunshine Week is that the media and the public are all in this together: The First Amendment doesn't grant the press any rights every citizen doesn't also have.

But a shield law sure does.

Yes, the Founders felt a free press was keenly important in a democratic society ---- so important, they enshrined it with religion in the First Amendment to their new Constitution.

Yet the Founders didn't even wait for the amendments to enshrine the right to a fair trial ---- it's embedded in the third article of the Constitution itself. And even at that, the Founders weren't done ---- the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments further spell out the rights a citizen has at trial. Surely the Founders felt that the right to a fair trial was at least as important as a free press.

When the media request laws that would place its ability to operate in secrecy above a citizen's right to a fair trial ---- to exempt their reporters and editors from the civic responsibility to give relevant testimony during investigations or trials ---- well, we set ourselves up not as protectors of the public, but as adversaries.

And that hardly seems good for either of us.

Contact staff writer Jim Trageser at (760) 740-5424 or jtrageser@nctimes.com.