Accurate information is considered the lifeblood of a democracy for a good reason. Knowing what’s happening in our world, nation, or community is essential to making informed decisions about elected leaders, public expenditures on roads and bridges, and the conduct of adversaries around the world, among other topics. We need a free flow of accurate information right down to how our favorite teams are doing — or not doing.
Of course, a free flow of reliable information depends largely upon the reporting of an independent media within a nation. That’s why the Bush Institute partnered with the Center for News, Technology, and Innovation in late January to co-host a virtual gathering of journalists and policy experts. Participants in the online event discussed the importance of a free press along with strategies to strengthen its work. The session also focused on challenges facing journalists abroad and here at home.
One common theme was the difficulty journalists face in getting access to information that helps us as citizens make decisions. For instance, government agencies can make it difficult for reporters to speak directly to anyone within a department other than an official spokesperson. And maybe not even that.
In a 2024 SMU Law Review article, SMU Dedman School of Law Professors Peter Stefensen and Thomas Leatherbury, who also directs the law school’s First Amendment Clinic, described how “journalists are encountering increasingly constrained avenues for obtaining public information.”
The journalists the professors surveyed in Texas and elsewhere reported that they are “…increasingly stymied by the government agencies they report on from performing core accountability work.” Moreover, Stefensen and Leatherbury found:
“As several members of the media have recently observed, they and their colleagues are increasingly being denied interviews with agencies, having their inquiries ignored or outright rejected, and being directed to communications officers who lack subject-matter or decision-making expertise. Consequently, these agencies have relied on tactics which delay the release of public information and filter any information the agency is willing to disclose through a single mouthpiece — so that governmental bodies can better set the terms around who receives information, what information they receive, and when they receive it.”
Another challenge is getting public documents in a timely manner. In Texas, authorities are known to delay acting on public information requests as well as charge substantial fees to process the request.
Texas is not alone. A couple who owns several small Iowa newspapers have taken to writing pieces for their papers describing how they are seeking information for a story, including from a public agency. They even have interviewed each other to explain the difficulty in accessing a document or a source. The pair acknowledged during the gathering that they feel uncomfortable doing these pieces, but they want readers to understand how and why they have sought information.
Access to information is not only a domestic challenge. One Kenyan-based journalist cited how simply gaining access to events he is trying to cover can be hard, if not impossible. In Mexico, a top editor of one outlet said that fear of speaking to journalists drives away some sources. A freelance reporter in Djibouti echoed that sources increasingly do not want to use their names for fear of retribution.
Fear of retribution is understandable. But the harder it is to get a source on the record, the harder it becomes to report accurately about, say, a protest. Or crime in a city. Or what people think about their leaders, especially in authoritarian societies.
Difficulty in accessing information is not just a journalist problem. The drying up of sources, the limited access to documents, and the control of narratives through official spokespeople impacts us as citizens.
Whether it is about the actions of our leaders, or of an event in town, or even a brewing snowstorm, we are the ones who lose without reliable information.
