There’s a reference book called the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, which is how I know that it was some five-and-a-half centuries ago that a book first declared, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Actually, in that 1576 book, Petit Palace, attributed to someone named G. Pettie, the phrasing was, “So long as I knoweth it not, it hurteth me not.”
Either way, it’s bunk. We are constantly harmed by what we don’t know – endangered by the darkness that surrounds a lot of life. That’s especially true nowadays, I’d say, when you consider the power of government over our lives – power to defend us, tax us, punish us, and, in its better moments, to sustain and empower us. If we are kept in the dark about what government is doing in our name, that ignorance leaves us at risk.
That’s why citizens, especially during the second half of the 20th century, insisted that open government laws be enacted at the local, state and federal level. And they’ve been a real success story in government. The laws vary, and they are weakened by exceptions, but they generally require that public bodies conduct open meetings and that public documents be available for our inspection.
For decades I used those laws as a journalist to pry open doors that would have been slammed in my face by secretive politicians and to uncover corruption or prevent it – because, as Justice Louis Brandeis memorably wrote, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” That is, just as sunlight kills germs and purifies, when you bring government actions into the broad light of day, public scrutiny and accountability makes government cleaner. That’s the benefit of so-called “sunshine laws.”
A lot of politicians fight it. And I know that it can be burdensome to respond to Freedom of Information Law requests, and citizens can hassle officials, sometimes unfairly, during open meetings. But that is a requirement of democracy.
One of my favorite examples of why this matters came in 2010, when the Los Angeles Times uncovered a scandal in the little city of Bell, California, population 38,000. Bell was one of the poorest suburbs of L.A., where 90 percent of the residents were Hispanic and unemployment stood at 16 percent. The newspaper used sunshine laws to uncover some astounding and expensive corruption: the little city’s part-time city council members were paid about $100,000 a year, the newspaper reported, and the city manager was making $442,000 – with benefits that would take his pension at age 62 to about a million bucks a year. Well, those pols went to prison and the tax hikes to pay for that excess got wound down, and a pal of mine shared a Pulitzer Prize for that reporting.
There are countless similar examples of how getting behind the closed doors of government can benefit taxpayers. And here’s what concerns me: As local news is declining, there’s a direct link to increased government secrecy. We’ve figured that’s true, but now there’s empirical evidence: A new University of Florida study has charted a link between the declining health of the local news ecosystem and decreased government transparency. The study found that states with fewer newspapers per capita are more likely to ignore or deny public document requests. It’s becoming endemic, in fact – because over the past 20 years, America has lost one-third of its local newspapers and 60 percent of its newspaper journalists.
There is a growing body of research that demonstrates the impact of so-called news deserts on democracy, including increased partisanship, lower voter participation, and diminished civic engagement.
What would sustain local journalism, of course, is more subscribers – or, in the case of public and not-for-profit media, more donors and members. But a Pew Research study released in June reported that only 17 percent of Americans pay for news, either in subscriptions or donations. Mostly, people say they get plenty of news for free. And I guess that’s true, if the news you care about is the engagement of Taylor and Travis or the latest on the Cracker Barrel logo.
But free news sources aren’t going to uncover corruption in your city hall and million-dollar pensions for smalltime politicos. That takes time and effort by professional journalists, doing smart work so you can know about it. Citizens need to understand that if they want good government, they need good journalism. And if they want good journalism, they need to pay for it.
Because that old saying from five and a half centuries ago was wrong, of course. What you don’t know can hurt you.
Rex Smith, the co-host of The Media Project on WAMC, is the former editor of the Times Union of Albany and The Record in Troy. His weekly digital report, The Upstate American, is published by Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
