A time to celebrate public access

Next week is Sunshine Week, a time set aside by the American Society of New Editors to discuss issues of access to public records.

Montana has some of the best laws concerning the public’s right to know what state and local governments are up to, but that doesn’t mean it is easy to get access to records that ought to be public.

The 1972 constitution and subsequent legislation guarantee the public’s right to information that was closed to the public in Montana.

If you want to see what governments are doing, where they are spending money and what kinds of actions they are taking, you have the right to see it. But local and governments — and especially their lawyers — are sometimes leery of opening up their records.

Right now, this newspaper has hired an attorney to get records we think the public has a right to see. It has taken months and money, but we will keep up the fight.

But another case that will have a major impact on the public’s right to know is especially disturbing to us, and we think it has not gotten sufficient public attention.

Attorneys for James Holmes, the murder suspect in the mass shootings at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater, want Fox News reporter Jana Winter to reveal her confidential sources.

The judge had issued a gag order on the case, and defense lawyers want to prosecute the police officers who revealed the information to Fox News.

Winter, citing her professional responsibility, has refused to comply.

That’s where it gets complicated.

Winter lives and works in New York, where there is a strong shield law protecting reporters’ confidential sources. Fox News lawyers argue that the case should be heard there, and New York courts agree. New York’s Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, has ruled in Winter’s favor — that she doesn’t need to reveal her sources.

Bound and determined, defense attorneys are now appealing to federal courts and hope to be heard in the U.S. Supreme Court.

If the court rules against Winter, it will affect the ability of reporters to find out news of interest to the public.

But Winter said the controversy has already had that effect.

Other sources have refused to provide information for stories she is working on because they fear she will be forced to reveal her sources.

Excuse our obvious bias on the subject, but we think the public is poorer by not getting unfettered information on a major case like the Aurora shootings.

This high-profile case has raised all kinds of questions about the mentally ill and how it should be treated.

The public should know what happened and what can done to prevent future incidents.

Fox News made a major contribution to letting the public know the story of the shooting. May they have success in the fight.

(John Kelleher is managing editor of the Havre Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected], 406-265-6795, ext. 17, or 406-390-0798.)