EDITORIAL: The state’s new Right-to-Know Law could be abused by both the media and the government. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen.
If you are inclined to believe everything you read in the papers well, some papers, at least you might think a vast conspiracy of silence on the part of New Jersey public officials is about to be smashed by a crusading, enterprising media seeking to shine a light into the darkest corners of government.
If you are inclined to listen to your elected and appointed leaders well, some leaders, at least you might think the most pernicious assault on their privacy, and a colossal threat to their ability to do the public’s business, is about to be mounted by a bunch of snooping, ink-stained wretches who care more about selling papers than reporting the truth.
What has inspired this outburst of hyperbole is the state’s new Right-to-Know Law, which took effect Monday. More than a decade in the making, it is a well-intentioned and significant piece of legislation, representing a major step forward in providing public access to documents maintained by the government.
Unfortunately, it is also seen by some distrustful souls, both in the media and in government, as a weapon that can be used to make life miserable for their adversaries. Every reporter who has ever been stonewalled by a bureaucrat, and every bureaucrat whose quotes have ever been mangled by a reporter, may be tempted to see the Right-to-Know Law as a means of getting even.
At its best, the new law really does open up the public’s business to public scrutiny. In the past, any documents other than those required by law to be maintained by a government agency (minutes of meetings, public contracts, ordinances and the like) were presumed to be privileged; the burden of proof was on the party requesting the information to show why it should be made public. Under the new law, any documents maintained by the government (with some legitimate exceptions, such as personnel records, and other, more self-serving exceptions, such as any documents prepared by or for members of the Legislature) are presumed to be public and the burden of proof is on the government agency to demonstrate why such information should remain privileged.
At its worst, the new law gives the vengeful reporter, who’s gotten the runaround once too often from the unfriendly municipal clerk or the unhelpful school board secretary, an excuse to demand reams of obscure documents on the pretext of working on a story (when, in fact, the real reason is to create meaningless work for government functionaries). At the same time, the law gives the obdurate clerk or overly protective board secretary an excuse to create an obstacle course of formal paperwork for reporters to fill out before they are given access to so much as a photocopy of the agenda for tonight’s meeting, much less any of the more arcane documents filed deep in the bowels of city hall or the school board offices.
Obviously, this was not the law’s intent. Yet our fear is that more than a few editors are priming their reporters for a frontal assault on government files, while more than a few state, county and municipal officials are getting their administrative staffs ready to use every bureaucratic trick in the book to keep the press at bay. If that becomes standard operating procedure, the new, improved Right-to-Know Law won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on and all the hard work that went into fashioning it will have been for naught.
There is, and always has been, a natural tension between the press and government, which can actually be quite healthy and productive, as long as it remains mutually respectful. For our own part, we plan to use the tools available to us under the new Right-to-Know Law judiciously and respectfully. And we are confident that the government officials and agencies we deal with will respect and honor our requests in return.
We can only hope that this conduct turns out to be the rule, rather than the exception.