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March 24, 2005
Heady
company
by JUDY HODGSON
The North Coast Journal
was one of 13 recipients last week of the James Madison Freedom
of Information Awards. The Journal was recognized by the
Society of Professional
Journalists Northern California Chapter for efforts last
year to unseal grand jury transcripts from an investigation of
Fortuna City Councilmember Debi August. (August, a real estate
broker and a 15-year veteran of the Planning Commission, is accused
of a conflict of interest regarding a real estate deal she personally
represented. Her case goes to trial in May.)
It started with an anonymous
tip, a call to the office asking us to look into publishing the
transcripts. The law is clear: Transcripts of testimony become
accessible to the public once charges are filed unless the court
orders otherwise. What we hadn't planned on was the court staff
blocking the release, telling us the judge had "ordered
the transcripts sealed" well beyond the 10 days required
by law. (That turned out to be false.) It took several weeks
and three formal letters to the court -- written with the help
of
our Sacramento media attorney -- to get the transcripts. We were
honored in part because we were willing to hire an attorney to
fight for this public access, "a potentially bank-busting
venture for a small, independent paper," according to an
article in the March 9 San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Most of the credit goes to Senior
Staff Writer Hank Sims and Editor Emily Gurnon. Neither one of
them was willing to accept the word of the court staff and requested
to see the judge's written order, which didn't exist.
By the way, we were in pretty
heady company last Wednesday night at the awards ceremony in
San Francisco. The honoree of the evening for career achievement
was Lowell Bergman, a TV news producer and Pulitzer Prize-winning
reporter best known for his investigation of the tobacco industry.
Bergman, who teaches at UC Berkeley, is a former professor of
Journal reporter Sims.
[photo above: Hank
Sims, Judy Hodgson and Emily Gurnon at the awards ceremony in
San Francisco.]
See North Coast Journal
cover story: "The
Debi August File," Sept. 9, 2004
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