Legislature reminds us that transparency matters

News media comes in all shapes and sizes — from radio to newsprint, liberal-leaning to conservative. Even within The Sheridan Press newsroom, we have a diversity of opinions and backgrounds among our journalists. 

But, despite our differences, journalists frequently unite around one central idea: transparency matters, and a knowledgeable community is a healthy community. 

That’s why journalists across the state were in an uproar after the Wyoming Legislature’s Select Committee on Legislative Facilities, Technology and Process voted 4-2 to bar photo and broadcast journalists from entering the halls that run next to the House and Senate floors in the Wyoming State Capitol.

The proposed rule change — which was reconsidered and struck down by the same committee on Thursday — would have eliminated the opportunity to gather eye-level images of lawmakers at work in each chamber, relegating journalists to documenting what’s happening on the floors from the galleries above.

The goal of the proposed change, according to the legislators who proposed it, was to reduce traffic in the capitol’s hallways. But it also could have set a dangerous precedent — one that concerned our organization and journalists across the state.

“To limit or revoke access sets a dangerous precedent not only for the Wyoming Legislature itself, but for local government agencies to follow suit,” the Wyoming Press Association said in a statement Oct. 15. “... Restricting access for members of the media will only serve to increase the divide between the elected and their electors.”

Journalists don’t want to impede the important work happening in the statehouse. But we do believe that any restriction in media access — and therefore, the public’s right to know what their government is doing — is unacceptable. And we’re glad the select committee came around to this perspective.

We offer our thanks to all the journalists and community members who spoke up against this proposed change, and to the legislators who listened. The public’s right to know continues to be a key priority of ours, and we’ll keep fighting for it.

(This editorial appeared recently in the Sheridan Press.)