I was a speaker at the Washington Coalition for Open Government conference in January. The panel was “Public Records Investigations: Where the bodies are buried.” We presenters, all seasoned journalists, were encouraged to dust off our best war stories.
The audience that day, though, wasn’t all that interested in what we had to say. Instead, they took control of the discussion, mostly talking to each other. We journalists were sparingly engaged, mostly when the crowd wasn’t able to answer questions themselves.
It was a moment of epiphany. At times it felt like watching the reader comments at the end of a news story become flesh. Some of it was interesting. Some was hooey. Much of the discussion spoke of the different ways people are getting information they need to make sense of the world.I came prepared to talk about how public records made it possible for The Herald to show the state ferry system was on a potentially disastrous course in 2007. At the time, the fleet included four Steel Electric-class vessels. While beautiful and beloved, we dug up documents suggesting the 1927-vintage boats had big problems. Worse, the state was making no progress on replacements.
Our stories led to scrutiny and, ultimately, evidence to question the safety of steel hulls that had marinated in salt water for 80 years. The old ferries were pulled. The state started building new boats. The first, the Chetzemoka, went into service in November.
Journalists live for stories that bring such change. We like to think they define our watchdog role. The digging and questions keep public institutions accountable.
But we aren’t the only watchdogs, as the crowd at the open government conference demonstrated. Public records laws in Washington are for everybody. Public information also belongs to us all.
Here’s the rub: While data troves increasingly are just a few clicks away on the web, a lot of the information we need to know will only see daylight if one of us watchdog journalists starts digging.
We are going to use this space to experiment. We hope to pair the accountability that comes from traditional journalism with new ways of telling stories. While the inquiries will answer questions, they won’t attempt to resolve them all.
The emphasis will be on quick, clear presentations that give readers greater access to largely unfiltered data and information. The stories will be designed to hold up online as well as they work on the printed page. We hope to spark discussion along with change.
We also will be taking suggestions for issues you’d like to see explored. The ones we’ll be most interested in will focus on some aspect of public life here in Snohomish County.
Send your ideas, your questions and comments to: needtoknow@herldnet.com. We need to know.
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