Sunshine needed more than ever
If secrecy is the natural tendency for bureaucracy if left unchecked, as German sociologist Max Weber posited, shrinking news resources and authoritarian government power moves should frighten us all.
News&Guide reporters have been trying for weeks to understand the scope of federal layoffs in our community, as gag orders have blocked them at every turn. Taxpayer dollars, appropriated by Congress, fund public-serving jobs and protect the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Reporters still don’t have information on 17 warrants allegedly issued for Teton County residents on Feb. 7, when ICE agents visited the town’s largest apartment complex in the early morning hours as part of President Trump’s promise to deport large numbers of undocumented immigrants. The community deserves to know: Are these violent criminals, or people who overstayed a visa or neglected to use a turn signal?
And despite arguments from three media organizations, the Jackson Town Council chose in January to deliberate its newest appointed member in private, a move that violates the spirit of the Wyoming Open Meetings Act, if not the letter of the law. Just because councilors can deliberate in private doesn’t mean they should.
This is Sunshine Week, when journalists annually remind citizens that they have the right to know how a government of the people, by the people and for the people operates. It’s a time to promote transparency, accountability and the highest ideals of our nation.
And this year Sunshine Week arrives as many of those ideals are in grave danger. With an executive branch seeking unprecedented power, a complicit legislative branch and a judicial branch under attack for upholding the Constitution, the fourth estate — the free press — becomes ever more vital in preserving democracy.
When the president decries any reporting that isn’t fawning propaganda “fake news;” when the president mandates that news organizations must use certain words or lose access to the White House; when the president replaces seasoned journalists at briefings with political instigators; and when the president sues media organizations with bogus lawsuits meant to harass, intimidate and cower, our republic teeters on the brink of authoritarianism. In just two months, this administration has done all of this and more, in a frontal assault on the free press straight out of Russia or Hungary.
Where to begin? For starters, our community deserves answers to questions about staffing at agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service that steward our public lands. The community deserves to know what actions law enforcement is taking within its boundaries and under what authority those actions are justified. Journalists are demanding answers, and citizens, town and county leaders, state representatives and Wyoming’s congressional delegation should join them and insist upon accountability.
Support journalists who adhere to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. Subscribe to a community newspaper, peruse the legal notices published in the Valley section of this paper each week, and attend a public meeting.
Ultimately, it’s up to the citizenry. When a government denies the press information, it’s denying the public information. If citizens don’t cherish and demand transparent government, then politicians certainly won’t provide it.
Now more than ever, the public’s business should be conducted in public, without any whiff of secrecy or collusion. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said.