LOS ANGELES – As newspapers around the state, country and globe continue to struggle, the industry’s plummeting bottom lines are leading to less government transparency due to the costly price of obtaining public records.
Recent reports have noted the fear that lies ahead if this dramatic shift in the inability to hold the government entities accountable continues. The Public's Radio reports that industry experts predict that fewer lawsuits from the media may lead to less government transparency and a greater difficulty in obtaining records.
Leading the charge for a more-transparent California state government is the First Amendment Coalition.
“We’re not just playing traffic cop; this is a really crucial right that the public and the press have to see the innerworkings of their government, and unless that right is enforced by individuals or organizations, it will go away,” David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition in Northern California, told the Northern California Record.
First Amendment Coalition is a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and advocacy organization, according to its website. It was founded in 1988 and Snyder became executive director in 2017. It also offers a legal hotline for free access to its lawyers for questions about public records and accessing them.
In January, the Coalition won a major legal battle after a year-long effort to enforce California’s landmark police transparency law. California's 1st Appellate District, Division Three ruled that it is the public's right to view police misconduct records kept by the state's attorney general.
“There’s no roving police force to enforce these laws, you really have to rely on the good faith of agencies to comply and when they don’t the only recourse – at least in California – and the only way to do that is to bring your own lawsuit,” Snyder said.