To publish or not to publish. Often, in the newspaper business, that is the question.
Most of the time, it’s not the “final answer” kind of question. When editors and reporters work on stories, there comes a time when a decision has to be made whether the necessary questions have been answered or whether relevant information might become available later.
The discussion then isn’t so much about whether to publish, but when.
Journalists are in the business of telling our readers what we know. In my reporting days, I rarely agreed to “off the record” interviews with people because it does readers little good for me to know something that I cannot print for them.
What’s the point of some guy telling you where Jimmy Hoffa is buried if it’s all off the record and you can’t use it? (No, I haven’t had the interview, but if you have some verifiable information about him, I’d love to break that story.)
Journalists have to make judgment calls every day about what they believe to be relevant to understanding and fully exploring the issues they write about it. They have to decide what questions to ask the people they interview, what data is needed from records,then later determine what information they’ve gathered that readers would want or need to know.
Some information falls more under the category of “want to know.” That includes the weekly listing of divorces filed and granted. Those are public records that readers have demonstrated they appreciate seeing.
The same goes for lottery numbers. There’s little news value in printing a set of numbers that for virtually all readers will lead to disappointment. But if we miss printing them, we’ll get the phone calls.
There are other public records newspapers don’t routinely publish, but government pays to have the information placed in print. Tax collectors in most counties publish some kind of list showing the property owners who have failed to pay property taxes. It becomes news if a high-ranking public official is on that list. Otherwise, it’s just a list of public information the county views as important enough to convey to the public.
Newspapers, however, generally don’t go nuts just publishing lists of public information just for the sake of publishing. Journalists could, for example, publish the salary of every public school teacher by name, but what’s the point? Unless one can demonstrate through reporting an unusual or unexplained imbalance within a school district or something nefarious about the data, why just publish a list to get into everyone’s business?
In White Plains, N.Y., a newspaper’s editor decided to obtain a list of local gun permit holders. That list was mapped and the data published for all to see. It’s caused a huge uproar.
Hard-core anti-gun advocates loved it, because they think anyone who owns a gun should be painted with a scarlet letter. Hard-core pro-gun advocates hated it, saying it provided criminals with a list of homes where they might believe they can steal guns, or alternately as way to determine which homes are less likely to have armed residents. They also noted some judges, law enforcement officers and others were included in the information, a situation that might lead to danger for them and their families.
Publication of the listing was an irresponsible thing to do without some compelling reason to do it.
The staff in White Plains didn’t meet that standard.
They simply did it because they could.
Media critic Al Tompkins of the Florida-based Poynter Institute said the newspaper’s reporting had not gone far enough to justify the permit holders’ loss of privacy.
“If journalists could show flaws in the gun permitting system, that would be newsworthy,” he said. “Or, for example, if gun owners were exempted from permits because of political connections, then journalists could better justify the privacy invasion.”
It remains important that such records remain open for public inspection.
If a shooting happens in Arkansas, for example, it’s relevant to be able to report whether the person involved is holder of a concealed handgun permit.
But wholesale publication with no news-driven issue of public policy? Tompkins is right when he says the abuse might prompt lawmakers to overreact and attempt to close down more public records.
“The net effect of the abuse of public records from all sides may well be a public distaste for opening records, which would be the biggest mistake of all,” he said.
GREG HARTON IS OPINION EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 01/07/2013