Washington journalist test public records access

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal, May/Jun 2002 by Sullivan, Paula Lavigne

You would think that someone had walked up to the counter and demanded the combination to the office safe based on the reactions of a few clerks when responding to a request for a copy of a public document.

That confusion is what many "undercover" citizens in Washington encountered during a statewide audit of how easy, or how difficult, it was for people to get copies of records that state law said they could have.

The survey was the first of its kind to examine Washington's Public Records Act. It involved 25 newspapers from across the state, The Associated Press and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association.

Our findings resulted in "Washington: Your right to know," a series of stories that examined how well Washington's public disclosure law was working in local government agencies. The project relied on a lot of coordination and didn't always go smoothly, but we learned a lot about how to do this and we made some interesting findings as a result of the audit.

The audit revealed there was much uncertainty and conflict regarding the law among almost every type of agency we visited. Law enforcement agencies refused us the most, which we expected.

[Open records surveys have been conducted by news organizations in several states. A compilation can be found at http://web.missouri.edu/~foiwww/ openrecseries.html, with links to the stories.]

The first stories in this multi-part series ran last October, four months after newspapers sent staff members out to make the initial requests. The planning, however, began even earlier with meetings of editors and organization leaders in the spring.

The group settled on three main objectives: see whether public employees know the law and follow it; make the requests as regular citizens and not as members of the media; and get newspapers across the state involved in the project.

The group reasoned that agencies were used to giving information to reporters. Reporters know how to get the information and often are directed to public information officers familiar with what they have to release. We wanted to know what would happen if Joe or Jane Citizen wanted the same information.

Real people requests

The project would have the most impact if it involved newspapers from all over Washington. By joining together - either by making public disclosure requests, writing the stories, or publishing the series - journalists helped show local and state agencies all over the state that we were serious about public disclosure laws. And it showed that regular citizens should care as much as the media.

We picked agencies with which people were likely to have contact, including police and sheriff departments, health departments, assessor offices and school districts.

There was a long discussion about what documents we should request, but as a guideline we settled on seeking information real people might need, and we tried to keep the requests simple and standardized.

Here's what we decided upon, making these requests in each of Washington's 39 counties:

* A list of sex offenders from the sheriff's office.

* A property crime incident report from the largest police department, smallest police department and sheriff's office.

* A restaurant inspection from the health department.

* A home's value and taxes due from the assessor-- treasurer's office.

* The superintendent's contract from the largest school district and from one of the smallest school districts.

There were good reasons to ask for these things. Now we had to decide how to ask for them, keeping in mind that we were making the requests as regular citizens and couldn't walk into the office citing chapter and verse of the public disclosure act, the way a journalist could.

We asked our people who were making the queries to go the main desk and simply ask the receptionist or clerk for a copy of the document they were requesting. If someone asked them for their name or asked why they wanted the document, they were to respond with, "Do I have to tell you that to get the information?" (Because they don't have to under Washington law.)

If the answer was yes, the person requesting the document was to provide his or her name and home address and telephone number, if also required.

If pressed for a reason, some said they just wanted the information for personal use while others stated again that they just wanted the information, no reason given.

Beat reporters could be easily recognized, especially in the smaller, more rural counties, so we asked that papers send people who did not normally deal with these agencies. At The News Tribune, we called on copy editors, page designers, interns and even a member of our information technology department to act as "auditors."

We needed people who were observant and who could take good notes without looking too obvious. They were supposed to act, dress and talk like a regular person just trying to get information.

They were not to give out any indication they worked for the paper (thus the need to provide home phone numbers), nor were they to call the agency from work, considering some law enforcement agencies might have caller identification.