It was a chilling crime and, even with a quick arrest, questions lingered.
Derrick Thompson called 911 in the coastal Maine city of Biddeford to report that he was being threatened. Police checked out the complaint, decided it was a civil matter and left the scene. Three minutes later, the teenager and his girlfriend were shot dead.
In a state averaging 25 murders a year, the case was clearly of public interest and the police officers were doing the public’s business. But answering questions about their handling of the call took a lawsuit, an appeal and 11 months after state prosecutors turned down the Portland Press Herald’s request for 911 transcripts.
The faceoff was eventually settled in the newspaper’s favor by Maine’s top court. But editors, advocates and academics say such situations reflect increasing difficulty getting access to information from statehouses and city halls across the country, as officials broadly interpret exemptions in laws requiring openness.
Tensions among government officials, journalists and watchdog groups are a constant in American life. Although it can be difficult to measure change, observers are troubled by what they see as declining transparency that some say might be abetted by public apathy.
Government’s swing away from openness began with post-Sept. 11 security worries, they say, and has been fueled more recently by officials’ concerns about individual privacy, changes in technology and opaque laws on campaign finance.
“There’s a clear trend toward increased secrecy in this country,” said David Cuillier, director of the University of Arizona School of Journalism. “I see it in my survey research of journalists, and I also see it just on the ground, in what’s happening at state capitals and the federal government.”
The federal government’s resistance to openness draws regular attention, but state and local officials have also moved to limit access to information and proceedings, he and others say.
In a survey of more than 450 state and local reporters to be released this week, an overwhelming majority said that public information officers for agencies they cover are increasingly restricting access to officials and imposing other controls limiting their ability to report on government.
“I think it’s a problem for reporters as well as for the public,” said Carolyn Carlson, a professor of communication at Kennesaw State University, outside Atlanta, who conducted the survey.
