Democracy depends on transparency

Today concludes Sunshine Week, an annual observance of the American Society of News Editors and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The week of March 16 is designated each year to honor the anniversary of James Madison’s birthday with a reminder to citizens of the importance of the free flow of information protected by Madison in his writing of the constitution’s Bill of Rights.

Sunshine Week promotes freedom of information and transparency in government, two of the standards insured by “watchdog journalism,” reporting that holds officials accountable – the very type of reporting that is in danger of being lost in local communities.

Watchdog journalism, or investigative reporting, has brought to light campaign finance abuse by school board members, overprescribing by doctors of pain killers in the opioid crisis, waste of taxpayer dollars on projects that bypassed competitive bidding, bribes to officials in state government, and in recent weeks, revelations of covering up physical abuse at the Glen Mills Schools reform institution in Delaware County.

Watchdog journalism has a preventive role, too.

When reporters are present at school board and council meetings, asking questions about bids, perusing budget documents and challenging executive sessions called behind close doors, officials understand their actions are being observed and reported. It keeps them honest.

As newspapers shrink and close, that presence at public meetings is becoming scarce.

An Associated Press report this week cited data compiled by the University of North Carolina that showed more than 1,400 cities in the U.S. have lost a newspaper over the past 15 years. Many of those are in rural and lower-income areas, often with an aging population.

“Strong newspapers have been good for democracy, and both educators and informers of a citizenry and its governing officials. They have been problem-solvers,” said Penelope Muse Abernathy, a University of North Carolina professor who studies news industry trends and oversaw the “news desert” report released last fall, the AP report stated.

“That is what you are missing when you don’t have someone covering you and bringing transparency or sunlight onto government decisions and giving people a say in how those government decisions are made.”

A study published in the Journal of Communication and cited in a recent MediaNews Group editorial reported that as citizens have fewer opportunities to read news coverage of local politicians and government officials they’re more likely to turn to sources such as social media or cable TV news for information. As people turn to these increasingly polarized sources, they often apply these opinions to local city council candidates and state legislators, according to the research.

This carries over to fewer voters casting ballots for candidates of different parties. In 1992, 37 percent of states with Senate races elected a senator from a different party than the presidential candidate favored in the state. In 2016, for the first time in a century, no state did that, the study found.

In another study, researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Notre Dame found that municipal borrowing costs increase after a newspaper ceases publication. The demise of a paper leaves readers in the dark and emboldens elected officials to sign off on higher wages, larger payrolls and ballooning budget deficits, AP reported.

Stanford University’s James Hamilton in his book “Democracy’s Detective,” examined case studies of newspaper investigations and found that each dollar spent by a news organization generated hundreds of dollars in benefits to society.

“When investigative scrutiny declines, stories go untold, which means waste, fraud, and abuse will be less likely to be discovered,” said Hamilton, director of the Stanford Journalism Program.

The presence and ability of journalists to seek out information is critical to an open flow of information. Without it, we’re in the dark.

Sunshine Week is journalists’ campaign to remind elected officials, citizens and news consumers of this importance.

Our democracy depends on it.