A reminder that October 6 — 12 is National Newspaper Week. This year's theme is "Think F1rst." It is a reaffirmation of the importance of the Five Freedoms secured by the First Amendment.
CNHI Deputy National Editor Jim Zachary suggests that a Sixth Freedom is implicit in the First Amendment: The freedom to know, also known as the freedom of information.
For the Valdosta Times, Zachary writes:
"With just 45 words the founders guaranteed five — no six — basic freedoms, fundamental American rights.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, was ratified to protect freedom, to ensure liberty and to define the Republic.
These fundamental rights of freedom declare what it means to be an American.
As Americans, we are guaranteed:
— The right to freely practice religion
— The right to exercise the freedom of speech
— The right of a free press
— The right to peaceably assemble in protest
— The right to petition the government for a redress of grievances
— And the sixth — implied — right: The right to know, viz. the freedom of information.
It stands to reason that if the press is free to hold government accountable, if all people are free to openly express their opinions about government, to assemble in protest of government and to petition the government for grievances against it, that we also have a fundamental right to always know what government is up to."
The rest of Zachary's article focuses on the role of newspapers in advancing the "fundamental right to always know what government is up to."
And rightly so, during National Newspaper Week.
But the Kentucky Open Government Coalition exists because citizen advocacy for the Sixth "Implied" Freedom is critical to preserving the right to know.
Along with newspapers, ordinary Kentuckians have played a substantial role in the development of the body of law that governs the public's rights rights under the open records and meetings laws. Citizens have been on the frontlines of some of the most important legal battles waged in the Office of the Kentucky Attorney General and in the courts.
And if, or when, new attacks on the state's open records and meetings laws are leveled by lawmakers purporting "to decide what is good for the public to know and what is not good for them know," citizens' voices from across Kentucky must be heard, along with those of Kentucky's newspapers, in opposing these legislators' efforts.
In 2016, two new exceptions to the laws were enacted, one in open records and one in open meetings, that *entirely* eliminated public oversight of the procurement process.
In 2017, a relatively harmless exception relating to purely private communications was enacted. But as introduced by its sponsor, in a clandestine fashion, that exception would have eviscerated the open records and meetings laws by removing public employees' and officials' communications about public business on personal/private devices/accounts from the application of the law.
In 2018, two bills were introduced. Each bill contained multiple subparts. Each posed a grave threat to existing rights under the open records law.
Newspapers and citizens successfully defended the open records law, and neither bill was enacted.
It remains to be seen whether these and other bills threatening the public's right to know will be filed in the 2020 legislative session, but Kentucky's citizens should be prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with Kentucky's newspapers to protect and preserve the Sixth Freedom.
