Access with Attitude: An Advocate's Guide to Freedom of Information in Ohio

Foreword

xiii Foreword Access with Attitude could not have come at a better time. Its authors, David Marburger , one of the Ohio bar’s leading First Amendment advocates, and Karl Idsvoog, a veteran journalist, teacher, and Marburger’s go-to investigator, bring a combined fifty years of experience to the struggle for government transparency. Their guide to Ohio’s open records law reflects the sum of that experience and fills a void that grows deeper with each passing day. Since the passage of the first sunshine law more than fifty years ago, print and broadcast journalists have been the principal defenders of the citizen’s “right to know.” Armies of reporters pored over the work of state and local government, fulfilling the role of surrogate citizen implied by the free press guarantee of the First Amendment. And when a citizen was confronted by a balky or resistant bureaucracy, he or she often turned to a reporter for help in freeing a record or opening a closed meeting. For most of the past forty years, it was routine for newspapers and broadcasters to loose the Marburgers of the First Amendment bar on those bureaucracies to pry open locked doors and closed files. Paying legal fees was part of a newspaper’s cost of doing business. Often all that was required was a phone call or a letter spelling out the law’s requirements and outlining the consequences of not following them. Sometimes, however, the persuasive letter from counsel was not persuasive enough, and the dispute matured into a full-blown lawsuit, fought all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court. Review the footnotes in Access with Attitude for a better understanding of just how vigorously the fourth estate has protected the right to know. Case after case pits a news organization—the Plain Dealer, the Beacon Journal, the Blade, the Dispatch— against a recalcitrant government agency, and the great majority result in a strengthening of the case law supporting openness. But what once was certain now has become dubious. The armies of reporters have been decimated by unprecedented economic stress in the news business. Fewer reporters are asking fewer questions and seeking fewer documents. Formerly robust newspapers and broadcast outlets struggle to stay solvent. Every expense in every budget is challenged. The line item for legal fees that used to run into six figures at some newspapers has dropped to near zero. xiv฀฀•฀฀Foreword That means that the public is in danger of losing its greatest ally in the fight for honest and open government, for the unchallenged, unwatched public office may slip quickly into sloth, inefficiency, or corruption. And it also means that the public must do more of its own watchdogging or pay the price in bad, unresponsive government. Access with Attitude is a heroic effort to level the playing field once again. It gives the interested citizen all the tools needed to do battle with those who would cut off or reduce public access or stand in the way of a pointed inquiry. This guide is written with the authority that can be gained only by a lifetime of fighting —in the courtroom and in city hall. Marburger and Idsvoog have done it all. And their beefy, fact-filled book reflects that on virtually every page. Even veteran reporters who use the open access laws daily will find gems of insight in this monumental work. If, when this book was begun in 2005, its target audience was the journalist, today that audience is civically active citizens confronted by a secretkeeping government and nearly unaided by their traditional allies from the press. Guides to the open records laws published by the secretary of state and the attorney general have merit, but they are, after all, prepared by the very agencies the access laws are designed to oversee. And they are bland and ponderously written, to boot. By contrast, this book offers an outsider’s perspective, is brilliantly organized, is written in easy-to-understand prose, and bristles with practical tips on how to win access fights. During my eight years as editor of Cleveland’s Plain Dealer I speed-dialed Marburger ’s phone number whenever an access problem loomed. Access with Attitude isn’t quite that, but it’s the next best thing. It belongs on every bookshelf in Ohio. Doug Clifton Editor, Cleveland Plain Dealer and Miami Herald (retired) Editor & Publisher’s Editor of the Year in 2003 ...