Tallahassee Democrat

Sunshine spoken here

Bloggers, pontificators have equal access

Know why we, as Americans, love and loathe the paparazzi? Because, at their best, they offer us irrefutable evidence of happenings involving people whose business we want to know. At their worst, they go to lengths greater than a reasonable person would to get that information.

Distasteful as abuse of that access may be, the images it yields satisfy human curiosity with inescapable, documented proof of happenings — much as access to public records does.

Whether journalists for a mainstream media organization or self-published bloggers and others in today’s “we the media” world of information, Floridians have a eagle-eye view of public business through our state’s Government-in-the-Sunshine Law.

The law provides a right of access to most governmental proceedings at state and locals levels. Should Mr. Smith desire to know how much the Joneses’ house is worth, he has the right to obtain those records, as he has a right to view the daily appointments on the mayor’s official calendar, or to read the lingo county commissioners use in e-mails about county business.

“In Florida,” as the introduction to the Government-in-the-Sunshine Manual reads, “disclosure is the standard, unless the Legislature concludes that the public necessity compels an exemption from our strong open government laws.”

It is a reality, too, that virtually every year’s lawmakers and executive-branch leaders find fresh areas of government that they’d like to put into the exemption category; some legitimate, others just more convenient for a special interest or agency.

The backing of our Sunshine Laws is worth constant vigilance. It puts a coffee-shop blogger on equal footing with an Associated Press reporter, with a sobering range of rights, privileges and responsibilities that can, if put to use, enhance credibility in the Internet world where truth and fiction are sometimes indistinguishable.

Outlined in the Government-in-the-Sunshine Manual, prepared by the Attorney General’s Office and published by the First Amendment Foundation, are some 300 pages outlining those rights, privileges and responsibilities — as well as several hundred exemptions to open government.

On any given day in Florida, journalists by both hobby and profession are equally protected and enabled by the access that our state’s Sunshine Laws provide. They ensure an opportunity to sate our curiosity, both idle and deeply meaningful, about public affairs under the protection — and even encouragement — of the law.

Reproduced courtesy of the Tallahassee Democrat.
Back to top | Return to fsne.org