Information Empowers American Citizens

Information is a powerful commodity, which helps explain why government seeks so often to curtail the public’s access to it.

Last week in Virginia, newspapers and other media outlets observed Sunshine Week, spotlighting the state’s Freedom of Information Act and how it empowers individual citizens, putting them on an equal standing with government.

Consider the case of Phil and Ellen Winter, residents of Waynesboro, who were dissatisfied with the way the city treasurer was running the office. Using the state’s FOI law, they requested — and eventually received — state and local government documents that portrayed an office in total disarray, one that had been cited by state agencies for mishandling of public funds.

They took their documents to The News Virginian, their local newspaper and a sister publication of The News & Advance, which pursued the story further, uncovering additional evidence of professional incompetence and lax management. As a result, at the next election, the incumbent was voted out of office, ushering in a series of long-reaching reforms in the department.

And all of it was due to the persistence of two individuals and one newspaper.

Because of the impact the couple’s efforts had on their community, the paper nominated them for the American Society of News Editors’ Sunshine Week Local Heroes award. They wound up being third-place honorees in the national competition.

FOI laws are among the most powerful weapons in the citizen’s arsenal when confronted with a government that doesn’t want to open up, doesn’t want to confront internal problems, doesn’t want to clean up corruption or mismanagement.

Several years ago, in one of the most famous uses of Virginia’s FOI law, a Nelson County couple uncovered gross mismanagement and malfeasance in the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Upset over the proposed closure of the Montebello Fishery, Lee and Paulette Albright sent one FOI request after another to the government agency, seeking the real reason for the fishery’s closure. What they uncovered in their hunt for information was an agency run as a personal fiefdom by its management and advisory board, complete with private trips abroad and paid for with agency dollars.

Many people, unfortunately, think FOI laws are the exclusive domain of news media outlets, if they know anything about them at all.

Government and the news media, in the minds of some folks who harbor disdain for both institutions, deserve each other.

They couldn’t be further from the truth.

The role of news organizations in America’s political structure is to advocate on behalf of openness for all citizens, fighting to keep government and powerful institutions honest, working to empower individuals with the information they need to confront government.

Here in Central Virginia, The News & Advance is rigorous in upholding the concept of open government. We abhor when local government bodies aggressively try to conduct their business out of the public’s sight, as in the recent cases the Appomattox Town Council and the Amherst County Board of Supervisors.

Misuse of laws that lay out the ground rules for a public body’s conducting business behind closed doors only serves to foster mistrust and anger in the general populace, and that’s not good for anyone.

An aggressive news media, though, can’t do it all by itself. The lone editorial voice of one newspaper can’t make an obstinate government official or an arrogant elected body follow the spirit of the law.

It takes an informed citizenry, fighting for its rights and standing up for itself, to do the job.

The media can provide all the information possible to the public, but if citizens don’t take the initiative upon themselves, then ultimately it’s all for naught.

The keystone of the American political system is the individual; if he abdicates his duties as a citizen, then we all are in a heap of trouble.