By Dave Perry, Editor | Commentary, Sentinel Colorado
Journalism, like beauty and pornography, is established by the eye of the beholder.
Given that everyone judges the quality and depth of each of those things on a wide and sometimes wacky spectrum, whom in the government would you trust to endorse as the most fabulous or vulgar thing ever?
More important, which county wonk, city clerk or state bureaucrat do you think should decide whether former gubernatorial hopeful Heidi Ganahl’s far-right “news” website, “The Rocky Mountain Voice,” is as much journalism as is the Sentinel, or the Denver Post, or Donald Trump’s Truth Social blog?
In what appears to have been a well-intentioned move by this year’s state legislature to make Colorado’s critical open records law more effective at getting the public, and especially the media, government records for use in news reports, the same lawmakers messed it up.
Senate Bill 25-077 got so bad that after passing with very bi-partisan support, Gov. Jared Polis vetoed the measure last week.
He did the right thing. It was a good try with dangerous results.
For years, lobbyists for news media like the Sentinel, led these days by Jeff Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, have pushed lawmakers to make the Colorado Open Records Act easier and cheaper to get public information.
Few things rise to the level of importance for government accountability as does media access to public records. It’s that access that enables reporters to give the public accurate and critical details about how the tax dollars are spent. Access to those records empower journalists to tell the public what elected and appointed officials really do, as opposed to just saying what they do.
For generations, hundreds of serious problems in government have been identified by journalists, and problems were resolved, because of this important tool.