POLITICS
-By Charles N. Wheeler III is director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

How well do we appreciate the underlying premise of democracy?

by Charles N. Wheeler III

As Mr. Lincoln's hometown, Springfield draws some three quarters of a million visitors each year from all over the world. Most are tourists who come on their own to learn more about the nation's 16th president. A special few, though, arrive under the aegis of the United States Information Agency's International Visitor Program, which provides a chance for foreign leaders from various fields to meet and confer with their professional counterparts in this country.

Visiting journalists invariably are keenly interested in the role of the news media in U.S. society. What's the relationship among journalists, government officials and the citizenry? How do reporters do their work? What ethical standards guide them? How are they held accountable? The questions seem particularly urgent when the visitors are from Eastern Europe or one of the former Soviet republics, where folks are still getting used to the idea of an independent news media, free of government control.

Discussing such issues with reporters from other nations and cultures, one is again reminded of the sheer genius of the country's founders in providing for a free press as one of the underpinnings of the democracy they hoped to create in the new nation. Their premise was elegantly simple: The average person could make sound judgments about civic matters if he or she had sufficient information. And to ensure a free flow of information, the authors of the U.S. Constitution fashioned the First Amendment, with its guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press.

Consider, for example, the results when reporters across Illinois sought public records from officials in all of the state's 102 counties.

In return for its privileged place, one explains to the visitors, the news media is expected to provide citizens with the information they need to decide such questions of public life as who should be elected to lead them and how important issues should be addressed. Part of the media's obligation is to play a watchdog role, letting citizens know when there are problems in the community, in government programs or with public officials.

"Might not this put reporters at odds with government leaders?" wonder some journalists, usually those whose homelands not so very long ago regarded criticism of public officials as treason.

Yes, one replies, but the media is supposed to serve the public, not the government. Far better to endure a politician's wrath than to jeopardize the most priceless asset a journalist has: credibility. That's why reporters and editors should strive so hard to be accurate and fair, lest errors and bias cause citizens to wonder whether they can rely on the information they're receiving.

Heads nod, and one hopes the visitors have gained some insights into the role an independent and responsible news media can play in nurturing democratic institutions and self-government in their homelands.

Yet there's a certain irony in these exchanges, as troubling trends now afoot raise questions about just how well the underlying premise of democracy — that citizens can govern themselves if they have the necessary information — is appreciated here at home. Consider, for example, the results when reporters for The Associated Press and 14 newspapers from across Illinois sought public records from officials in all 102 counties. Because the project's editors wanted to know how easy it is for ordinary citizens to get public information, they told the reporters not to identify themselves, to avoid any special treatment for the media.

In most cases, the AP found, local officials did not follow the state's Freedom of Information Act in fulfilling requests; nearly two-thirds of the time, the reporters left an office without the requested documents. They had to file written FOI requests to get more than one-third of the documents, and in a quarter of the cases, officials didn't provide records even after reporters made formal requests.

Some officials said they didn't know the FOI law required them to compile certain records, while others refused to release information until shown a copy of the law's disclosure requirements.

Frequently, officials asked the reporters why they wanted the information and insisted they reveal their names. A few officials even summoned

46 September 1999 Illinois Issues

police when reporters would not identify themselves and their reason for the inquiry, though the law does not require such disclosures.

The responses are unsettling to anyone who believes in open government.

"When Joe Citizen walks in and asks for a jail log, and he is first of all denied, and then before he leaves the building a sheriff's deputy is running a criminal background check on him, that's not the America envisioned by the Jeffersonians," says Springfield attorney Don Craven, an expert on FOI law and the Open Meetings Act, the state's other bulwark of open government. "If John Citizen wants to know who's being held in the county jail, that's public record and should be available, whether he's with the media or just out on parole."

In an ideal world, of course, everyday citizens would make clear the high value they set on access to public information, so that officials would disregard their obligations at their peril.

"Public records belong to the tax payers who fund the creation of those records," House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, an architect of the FOI law, told the AP. "You would think it is in the interests of the officeholders to make friends with the public, not enemies."

Open access advocates like Craven and Currie say local officials need better training on their FOI responsibilities, while perhaps the law itself could use some teeth, such as civil fines for offending officials and payment of legal fees for citizens who must sue to get access to public information. In an ideal world, of course, everyday citizens would make clear to officials the high value they set on access to public information, so that officeholders would disregard FOI obligations at their peril.

Until then, however, championing the cause of open government must fall to the news media as the public's surrogate, both here and in emerging democracies around the world. 

47 September 1999 Illinois Issues