Some examples of why open records can be so important

THIS is Sunshine Week, an annual event sponsored by the American Society of News Editors and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Now in its 12th year, Sunshine Week celebrates “access to public information and what it means for you and your community.”

What has this access, via such laws as the state’s Open Records Act, meant for readers of The Oklahoman?

Consider that open records laws provided reporter Nolan Clay access to records documenting how the state House of Representatives had paid $44,500 in state funds to settle a wrongful termination claim filed by a former House staffer who also said she had been sexually harassed by her boss.

Subsequent reporting led to a second former aide leveling similar complaints against the same House member, Republican Dan Kirby of Tulsa. Kirby ultimately resigned after a special House committee recommended his expulsion for accepting and, at times, asking the second woman for topless photos.

In November, Jaclyn Cosgrove wrote a series of stories that detailed the struggles Oklahoma’s county jails have in dealing with mentally ill inmates. The months-long investigation involved poring over hundreds of pages of jail inspection reports — reports accessible because of open records laws.

Around the same time last year, Oklahoma State football fans got a sense of how coaches and athletic department administrators reacted in the days after the officiating crew blew a last-minute call that cost the Cowboys a victory against Central Michigan. Sportswriters Kyle Fredrickson and Adam Kemp reviewed 300-plus emails obtained via an open records request and found “a focused and rigorous effort to identify the source of the officials’ error” but no effort to ask CMU to forfeit the victory.

Last September, our Capitol reporter at the time, Rick Green, delved into the details regarding a bill passed in the closing weeks of the 2016 session that now has motorists paying $5 for new license plates. Those details revealed that the state will get big money as a result, as will a private company that’s involved in the plate production process.

Last month, The Oklahoman’s Brianna Bailey wrote that the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center has received about $2 million in the past four years for selling baboons for medical research. OU said in 2015 it was ending the program within four years, but records showed the project still receives federal funding and OU continues to sell baboons for research.

And earlier this month, reporters Darla Slipke and Silas Allen collaborated on a story that documented which apartment complexes in Oklahoma City had the highest numbers of confirmed aggravated assaults or assaults with a deadly weapon. The information was gleaned by analyzing police records.

We could cite numerous other examples. Suffice to say, access to government records and government officials — whether at the local, state or federal level — is critically important and must be fiercely defended, but not just by the media. This cause should resonate with all Americans. Sunshine, as former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, really is the best disinfectant.