By David Bordewyk
South Dakota NewsMedia Association
Last week we observed Sunshine Week by discussing ominous clouds of secrecy forming on the horizon. Truthfully, the overcast conditions are already here.
Sunshine Week is a national observance focused on government transparency and the public’s right to know. The South Dakota NewsMedia Association First Amendment Committee hosted a public webinar on March 14 with a nationally recognized open government expert who quickly put a damper on any thoughts of a celebratory-type Sunshine Week.
“My message today is clouds are forming. There is a steady decline in transparency in this country,” said David Cuillier, director of the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida.
And that downward trend in government transparency is no more apparent than right here in South Dakota.
One national study ranks South Dakota 48th in the nation when it comes to state government’s compliance with open records requests. In three other open government studies, South Dakota ranks dead last in the nation.
As Cuillier told the webinar audience of about 75 journalists, government officials and others: “that’s not cool” regarding South Dakota’s propensity to be at the bottom for government openness.
Across the country, we are witnessing the government being less cooperative when it comes to responding to requests by journalists and others for government records and information.
The success rate for those who requested records from state and local governments dropped from 53% in 2014 to 31% in 2022, according to data from MuckRock, a non-profit organization that assists in filing requests for government information.
It’s even worse at the federal level where successful freedom of information requests dropped from 52% to 13% over the same time period.
Why such alarming trends here and nationwide?
Cuillier pointed to a few key reasons: fewer journalists and FOI advocacy groups to carry the torch for the public’s right to know; government agencies more likely to “ghost” or simply ignore journalists’ phone calls and email queries; and fewer resources to mount legal challenges to FOI denials.
It comes as no great surprise South Dakota suffers from a lack of government openness and transparency.
Cuillier attributed South Dakota’s problems to weaknesses in our open-records and open-meetings laws and he is correct.
Broad, sweeping exemptions in our open-records laws allow government officials to deny most any request for government records. Most notable is a lack of public access to official government correspondence, including government emails, and to a whole host of law enforcement records. Things that are commonplace in other states.
Open government laws need to be fixed in South Dakota, but it cannot be done without political leadership and diligence in our state. In the meantime, we must do all we can to keep these issues at the forefront. Much is at stake.
As Cuillier said: “Accessing public records is all about democratic civic engagement because we can’t make decisions at the polls or elsewhere if we don’t know what the government is doing.”
Here is hoping for brighter, sunnier days ahead.
David Bordewyk is executive director of the South Dakota NewsMedia Association, which represents the state’s newspapers and digital news outlets. A recording of the SDNA March 14 webinar with Cuillier can be found on the SDNA YouTube channel.
