.
Confronting
Mistrust Between Legislators, Lobbyists
and Press
by
Judah Ken Freed
Options
to improve relationshsips discussed at
annual meeting for National Conference of
State Legislators.
.
Mutual
mistrust between state legislators,
lobbyists and the press provides necessary
checks and balances in an open democracy,
asserted panelists at a crowded NCSL
conference session on July 26, but only
those in each camp who operate with
integrity deserve the respect from their
counterparts.
"Everybody lobbies
for they what they want," said panel
moderator Fred Brown, who retired from
The Denver Post in January after
more than 30 years covering Colorado
politics. "What matters is full
disclosure, especially for lobbyists, who
must always be honest and accurate in what
they say about the other side of any
issue."
"I wrote the ethics
law that's on the books in my state," said
Ohio state senate president Richard Finan,
"but no legislators or lobbyists has had
to be sanctioned so far because I've made
it clear to each one of them personally
that I won't tolerate it. Of course, I'm
term limited, so I don't know what will
happen after I leave."
"In states with term
limits on legislators," said lobbyist
Marcie McNelis at Multistate Associates in
Virginia, "the result has been a shifting
of power to the executive branch while the
lobbyists have become the legislature's
institutional memory. This means we must
be sure to be accurate and complete in all
of our statements."
A case in point came
from Lucy Morgan, Tallahassee bureau chief
for the St. Petersburg Times. A
lobbyist hoping to be paid a contingency
fee for passage of a bill regulating
rental cars at the airport did not reveal
that fact to legislators or the press, she
said, "and that's what gives lobbyists
such a bad reputation."
Ferreting out hidden
agendas is the job of journalists, said Al
Cross, the political editor at the
Louisville Courier in Kentucky.
"I'm more concerned about journalists not
being allowed to do their job properly
because of the rise of corporate
journalism, which sees the news as just as
way to fill the space between the
ads."
Cross also voiced
dismay at the loss of diverse editorial
voices in most American cities from
newspaper consolidation. "Publishers need
to remember that the press is in public
service, too."
This theme was
picked up by Kenneth Montague, a state
representative in Maryland. "The press has
the standard of the greatest good for the
greatest number, but this is not always
being observed because of a growing
disconnect between editors and reporters
over the accuracy of political
reporting."
Part of the problem,
said Brown, is that too many newspapers
are assigning cub reporters to the state
house instead of relying on veteran
journalists who know the ropes and have
proven their integrity, such as keeping
remarks off the record when
promised.
"I talk to the press
a lot," said Finan, "and I always assume
that everything I say is on the record and
can end up in print, no matter what a
reporter tells me. But there are some
reporters I won't talk to any more,
period, because they don't know the
difference between an editorial and a news
story." His remark stirred audience
applause.
Kenneth Walsh from
U.S. News & World Report
summarized the panel session by saying,
"The integrity of the relationships
between legislators, lobbyists and the
press does matter for society, so
you need to know whom to trust. Doing a
better job of policing ourselves as
journalists is the best way to make sure
we're qualified to be the watchdogs of
legislators and lobbyists."
Revised
from first publication in The Colorado
Statesman
August 2002
(c) 2002-03 by Judah Ken Freed
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