Editorial Roundup
Dec 18th, 2007 by dani_k
Newspapers from around the state have had plenty to say about unfinished open-records business.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazete says it’s no wonder that “the public…remains angry, two years after their middle-of-the-night pay raise was rescinded. They just don’t seem to understand that it’s not about the raise anymore — it’s about the lack of results, the failure to accomplish what they’d been promising since their summer recess.”
The Beaver County Times & Allegheny Times says that “The only reason lawmakers can brag about it being an improvement is that the current law is simply awful. It’s like an NFL team bragging that it tripled its wins, going from 1-15 one year to 3-13 the next.”
The Centre Daily Times is worried about the bill turning into a law once the Legislature comes back from their holiday break - “there’s no telling whether the two chambers can agree on this, no matter what they say now, and if history is a judge they must do it immediately or they’ll get bogged down quickly in state budget hearings and other issues, presenting new priorities.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer points out that there’s a bit more work to be done on the bill, saying “State lawmakers are close to implementing real reform to a basic tenet of our democracy. With some tweaks, Pennsylvania could move from the backroom to the sunroom when it comes to letting the public see how the public’s business is conducted.”
The Morning Call agrees that some fixes are needed - as passed, for example, “The bill makes phone numbers and birth dates protected information. While there’s understandable concern these days about the potential for identity theft, the reality is that there are databases where this information is readily available. What would such an exemption mean for those who publish phone books?”
The Patriot News is pushing for changes, too, but they’re focusing on the openness of autopsy records: “The legislation now would exempt autopsy reports from the general presumption that public records should be publicly available. That would represent a 180-degree turn from existing law, under which autopsy reports are treated as open records, publicly available. Going backward on this would be a huge mistake.” They point out the work of P-N reporter Pete Shellem, whose investigative work has helped to overturn four convictions from across the state. Shellem’s work is pretty interesting on its own. Mario Cattabiani of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a great piece on Shellem’s reporting for the American Journalism Review this summer.