I come from a long family lineage of lawyers. My dad is a lawyer, a pretty good one at that. He is a member National Board of Trial Advocacy, and has been voted one of California’s “Super Lawyers” for 8 years in a row. A lot of people assumed that I would choose law as a career, but it never interested me. Most of his friends are lawyers, and their children have gone on to become either lawyers or doctors. One is even a brain surgeon-talk about pressure. I thought I was going against the grain by choosing a career as a journalist-apparently they are more similar than I originally thought.
Scott Glogovac, is an attorney at the Reno based firm Burton, Bartlett & Glogovac. In addition to his many clients, Glogovac also represents the Reno Gazette Journal. He came and spoke to our class about how the law and journalism apply to each other and how as journalist we go about requesting and obtaining documents. Prior to meeting Scott, I was unaware that the majority of media companies have lawyers on staff to help gain access to public records. Glogovac remarked that, “The [Reno Gazette Journal] gets a lot of blow back from government agencies,” however that does not negate the essential fact that, “The most important function of the media and reporters to fulfill their role as public watch dogs.” Three principal things in the law that help reporters carry out these duties:
Pubic Records Law
This law exists at both a state and federal level and includes the FOIA, The Freedom of Information Act. The primary purpose of this law is to allow members of the public and media to obtain records. The key provision in this law states that all public books and records of a government entity must be open at all times during office hours to inspection by any person. If the records are requested via email, they must respond in 5 days, and they are allowed to charge a fee for their services. Even though a document is public, if there is some privacy interest in the document, that can outweigh the publics access to the record and then it becomes a private record.
Open Meeting Law
“The Open Meeting Law supports the principle that the democratic process depends on the public having knowledge about the considerations underlying governmental action. The Open Meeting Law requires that most meetings of governmental bodies to be held in public.” Although this law now pertains to the majority of the 50 states, it was enacted in 1960 in Nevada. Specifically in the state of Nevada, it is required that the public have access to have “minutes,” and that the minutes must preserved for 7 years and additionally, the meeting must be recorded by audio. This applies to any government body that exists through taxpayers for funding.
The First Amendment:
Last but certainly not least, Scott discussed the First Amendment, which guarantees the public and the media access to judicial proceedings. If public and media access jeopardizes the accused to a fair trial then there can be limitations places on public and media access. One example Scott gave of this happening was when former NFL player OJ Simpson tried is Las Vegas.
To conclude his lecture, Glogovac pointed out that, “There is no reason why the media can’t cover all three major branches of government.” He explained to our class that government agencies tend to think that the media isn’t fair since they assume that if you’re asking for information, you are going to say something negative about them. And from the perspective of a lawyer, there is a governmental hesitation to cooperate with reporters for the same reasons. However, the “real world” does not tend to be forthcoming about offering information to reporters so we must be persistent.
Note: My parents never actually encouraged me to become a lawyer and are very supportive of my career choice (here's to hoping it eventually leads to a career). I think my parents might Google me, so if you're reading this, thanks!!
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