Raise the Hammer

Very interesting discussion - and timely. It comes as we see many of our public institutions retreating in fear from openness. We have a police chief who routinely refuses to answer questions from the media, a school board that believes elected representatives should be allowed to say nothing negative ever and that staff are the official spokesmen, and now this. However, I believe these issues are more nuanced, less absolute, than is sometimes recognized. Some of the issues raised in this joint statement arise from our public institutions' understandable inability to adjust to a swiftly changing,deeply disrupted information ecosystem (if you'll forgive the horrible phrase). Some of the concerns undoubtedly stem from the fact the policy is still not written, consultations still undone, and thus the policy can be seen to be as bad or as good as you wish, depending on how much you want to extrapolate or infer from the few public comments made so far. And some of the issues stem from assumptions about the political motivations involved. Fair enough. Reading the joint statement, however, I am concerned, not about the divide between Mainstream Media and Individual Journalists, but the divide between Media/Journalists and The Public.THAT is the most important battle, I think. Public information needs to be public for all. And available in a useful, affordable and timely manner. Period. Please take care to draw a distinction between that critical principle and the question of timely access to staff. Elected officials are free to snub you or I or CH - at their peril. They are accountable at election time and they have the freedom to be smart or stupid in choosing how available to make themselves. It is up to each one of us to convince them that it's worth it to give us their time. Public officials are a different matter,I believe. They are staff, public employees, and while it might be nice to say, "I pay taxes, you work for me, dagnabit!" I think we have to recognize that there is a public benefit in ensuring that their time is used efficiently and sensibly. (You and I are not the only ones paying taxes.) So the question of access to public officials (not public information) is not so absolutist, I believe. Should city manager Chris Murray have the right to shield himself from any specific call for his time and attention that comes from the public? (And we are all simply the public, not media and public...) I'd say the answer is yes. I can't imagine a public institution that could function otherwise. Note this about access to individuals, access to their time and acccess to their opinions - NOT access to public information. I have long argued - long before the web was built - that the media has NO special rights, should be given NO special status in the eyes of the law, as compared to the rights of the individual. I still believe that to be true. I apologize for the lengthy comment - these are issues very near and dear - and thank you for raising and hosting this discussion, it's valuable. Oh. And one small correction - Very little of the mainstream media are private companies these days. We are private sector, but public companies. That is a meaningful difference, I believe.