Prying open court records
I haven't blogged in a while, partially because my role here at the N&R was changing so often and partially because I didn't think I had anything worthwhile to say. But Al Tompkins at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies posted a column today that really punched one of my buttons: open government records. In particular, he focused on cases in which court records, normally open in every state, are being sealed for what turns out to be no good reason.
In some of the cases he cites, prominent individuals most likely benefited from the case sealings. And newspapers have been fighting back in several communities, suing for access to the records.
And because such cases often are considered of interest only to journalists, they're writing about the subject in plain language meant to explain why everyone should care about this violation of law. A Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press article on the Seattle Times' work cited by Tompkins shows just how plain, and focused directly on the reader, the language could be:
The first story, for instance, starts like this:
Four years ago, a lawsuit was filed in King County Superior Court, alleging that a medical device was unsafe. A woman using it wound up in a coma. You'd probably like to know: What's the device? Does anyone in my family use it? Unsafe how?But you can't know. You're not allowed to know.
The newspaper also wanted to be upfront with readers about its involvement in the cases.
That first story ended this way:
"We start filing motions tomorrow. We'll let you know how it goes."
I do not know whether the problem exists here, or, if it does, to what extent. If it did and we knew, I do not know whether we could devote the resources to documenting it that the Seattle Times did there in King County, Wash. But I would like to think we'd do everything in our power to see to it that the public's legal business, carried out in courts supported by our tax dollars, would be done in public. Secrecy breeds favoritism. Favoritism breeds injustice.