Transparency: some just don’t get it.

Will 21st century public meetings law in Oregon be bound by 20th century definitions? The City of Lake Oswego seems to hope so.

Oregon has a reputation as a state with a high degree of transparency, thanks largely to its open meetings laws (see ORS 192.610, or the Oregon Department of Justice’s Public Meetings Handbook). Yet even here, we have an occasional slip back into the paleolithic age from time to time. The Oregonian reported last week that the City of Lake Oswego is considering restricting journalists who attend executive sessions of local government bodies to only those who are part of “established” media. The League of Oregon Cities, according to the same story in The Oregonian, may distribute the policy to the rest of the cities in the state as a possible model for statewide adoption. Established is defined, essentially, as traditional big media outlets. As The Oregonian reports:

After nearly a year spent considering the matter, a task force dominated by government and traditional media representatives has come up with a policy that could make it difficult, though not impossible, for new, independent bloggers to gain access.

…the burden of proof is on the individual to provide “substantial evidence” that he or she is a reporter. That individual must be a member of a recognized journalism association, work for a newspaper that the public body uses to publish public notices, or be recognized as a news source.

Attendance at an executive session might require a press badge issued by a recognized media organization, a recently published news article in the recognized publication or broadcast, or a letter on letterhead from an editor of the organization.

The purpose of executive sessions is to discuss contracts, hiring and firing of key staff, and other financial or sensitive matters that may require some degree of privacy to be effective. Here in Oregon, journalists have been allowed to attend (but not report on) what goes on in executive sessions since the current open meetings law was devised in the 1970s. The intention is that journalists are part of the democratic process, and their attendance at executive sessions would help to ensure honesty on the part of elected officials.

Naturally the Internet turns a lot of this topsy-turvey. Definitions of media have become harder and harder to make as the line between citizen and journalist blurs. As journalism moves from profession to civic responsibility, a notion I have discussed before, how will governments handle the executive session issue?

Here, it appears the answer is thought to be the restriction of the term journalist to apply only to those working for the entrenched, established 20th century media outlets. While the difficulty of creating an acceptable solution for the executive session issue — if everyone is a journalist, then everyone can attend an executive session and thus defeat the purpose of their very existence — this restriction to those allied with dead tree media is hardly what I would call a creative or enlightened position.

Particularly damning is this quote from the cover letter from the City of Lake Oswego’s task force:

A number of local governments in Oregon have faced new media persons asking to attend executive sessions as “media representatives” under the law.

Some governing bodies have been reluctant to allow new-media reporters into executive sessions because they have not developed a sufficient level of trust in new-media reporters and writers nor the institutions they represent.

Trust? While I understand the position of officials wanting to ensure that sensitive but proper and legal discussions stay confidential, this statement smacks of a game of insider favorites.

Journalism is changing rapidly. The same week that The Oregonian reported about the executive session issue, the USC Annenberg School for Communication renamed itself the School for Communication & Journalism, in recognition of the changing role of journalism within society. Says Geneva Overholser, the director of the School of Journalism at Annenberg:

For, even as its traditional models collapse, journalism is being reinvented. It is being reborn in new and exciting ways every day. And with this name change, we make clear the vital roles that Annenberg has played, and WILL play, in that reinvention.

Some — such as Annenberg, or the Knight Commission, and others — are on the bleeding edge of change, trying to understand new and better ways to approach this once central force of American life, while others are digging in their heels to try and stop change entirely. This month, it appears that Lake Oswego has sadly put itself in the camp of the progress blockers, and the citizens are the poorer for it.