Sunshine: Why WyoFile exists

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: On day 1 of Wyoming’s recently completed legislative budget session, a prominent political activist walked onto the House floor and started handing out checks to lawmakers. It was a big story. Still is. 

Sunshine Week — a nonpartisan collaboration among civic, education, government and journalism groups that shines a light on the importance of public records and open government — presents an opportunity to examine the hows and whys of this kind of critical reporting. The twists and turns of Checkgate illustrate the methods and motivations behind our pursuit of public-interest journalism, the ever-mounting challenges to that pursuit and the non-negotiable necessity of transparency.

That’s first evidenced in some of the assumptions that set the stage for the story. The activist, and most of the other parties involved, apparently expected their behavior to go unscrutinized. It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. Credible, competent, nonpartisan journalism in America — doubly so at the state and local level, and triply so in rural regions — has been so decimated that the proverbial smoke-filled back rooms haven’t been so cozy, so comfortable or so safe from sunshine in generations. And the check-passing didn’t occur in a back room, but rather in a place so public that it has a gallery for spectators.

Many in positions of power and influence have grown so unaccustomed to answering questions or having their decisions challenged, that our initial questions were met with incredulity. 

Asked, “What did you hand out on the floor of the House?” the initial response came back, “It’s nobody’s business.” 

“Who was that check from?” was met with “Well, figure it out.” 

I wish I could say these were unusual responses, but they’re much closer to par for the course. Legitimate, straightforward questions from our reporters about how the people’s business is being conducted are ignored or, worse yet, met with hostility nearly every day. 

Many agency personnel — mostly at the federal level, but in some state agencies too — have been explicitly muzzled, forbidden from answering even simple, innocuous questions without the express permission of political leadership. How many government employees were fired? What data was produced by that publicly funded wildlife survey? Why are we going to war? Which officials hold financial interests in that entity with newly relaxed regulations? Questions like these are more often met with stony silence or combative nonanswers than actual candor. Those who haven’t been explicitly silenced are no less reluctant to talk. They fear that telling the truth and sharing the information they have — the public’s information — will result in retaliation and/or the loss of their jobs. Frankly, it’s hard to blame them.

In response to questions, many in power quickly pivot to blaming the messenger. The official response to our Checkgate reporting may have been swift and decisive: an executive order from Gov. Mark Gordon, rule changes in the Wyoming House and Senate, a House investigation and a criminal investigation by the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office into accusations of bribery.

The unofficial response, however, was even faster and more aggressive: An all-out campaign to shift responsibility, deflect attention and intimidate the forces of transparency.

One representative accused another of defamation on the House floor. The first threat of a lawsuit was issued before we published a word. Those threats continue. This, too, is increasingly the norm. 

I’ve had the privilege of running WyoFile for almost nine years. In the first seven, I spoke to WyoFile’s attorney somewhere in the neighborhood of zero times per year. Today, I’ve got him on speed dial. We are threatened with spurious suits on a regular basis, and so are many of our colleagues. And they’re not always idle threats. Wyoming is one of the only states in the union without an anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) law. That leaves those aiming to spread sunshine here vulnerable to meritless lawsuits that can take years and immense amounts of money to win. Such use of tactical lawfare is deliberate, designed to have a chilling effect on our work and, I’m sad to say, often effective, even if only on the margins. By occupying the scant time, attention and financial resources that we have to do the work that Wyoming counts on us to do, this approach gradually erodes transparency.

Even as allies rattled legal sabers, representatives chastised members for talking to the “malice” [sic] and “aggressive” press about the money changing hands, going so far as to investigate potential rules violations by the lawmakers who helped bring the behavior to light. 

The proper course of action, the argument went, would have been to handle the affair quietly, internally, lawmaker-to-lawmaker. Many aggrieved check recipients complained bitterly about being lambasted by constituents and how bad the circumstances made them look. 

Lost in all the hand-wringing, though, was a simple, basic precept. What “don’t talk to the press” really means is “keep the public in the dark.” 

This creates a profound disconnect between officeholders and politicos and the public at large. When people don’t know what’s going on, they can’t engage. And when they aren’t involved in the process, decision makers only hear from a select few, skewing their perception of what their constituents actually want and need. If hearing from constituents about your behavior is uncomfortable, maybe that’s a sign you’re not as mutually aware of one anothers’ values and expectations as you should be.

That’s not how representative democracy is supposed to work. But it’s exactly how it’s doomed to function without a robust, accountable, and yes, “aggressive” free press on the job.

The offense-as-defense response wasn’t, of course, contained within the Capitol. It quickly spilled into cyberspace with the type of ad hominem attacks, name-calling, demonization and us-vs-them trolling that apparently passes for political speech in our age. 

Instead of discussing whether it’s a good idea for donors to hand out checks on the floor of the People’s House, many of those involved — with views on both sides of the issue — were busy painting those who saw it differently as radical, dangerous others who must be feared and defeated at all costs. Spouses were denigrated, personal lives were attacked, neighbors were described as less than human.

I’d say it GOT nasty, but the fact of the matter is, it almost always IS nasty these days. Nasty is increasingly the rhetorical coin of the realm and what passes for normal. 

To keep us from getting stuck in the mud, we hold tight to our pursuit of the facts. As poet Andrea Gibson said, “Even when the truth isn’t hopeful, the telling of it is.”

When I started in this role, I had very little concern for the physical safety of our staff. By contrast, this year, we’re going to spend thousands of dollars and untold hours on training, equipment, policies and procedures to try and ensure our people get home in one piece at the end of each day. And I can’t guarantee that it will be enough.

What I can do, what WyoFile will continue to do, is ensure that our team’s work remains mission-driven and focused on the public good. WyoFile’s mission is to inform and engage Wyoming with in-depth reporting in the public interest. 

The ongoing Checkgate story is also reflective of how we pursue that mission and why.

By sticking to the facts, our reporters took what would have been a he-said, she-said, no-one-really-knows-but-let’s-see-who-can-yell-the-loudest debate and centered it on verifiable information. We put it on the record, with irrefutable evidence. We established what, in fact, happened, definitively. Then we made that reporting available to all, so that every Wyomingite could decide for themselves how they felt about it, and what, if anything, they wanted to do about it. 

Our approach has also exemplified the essential civility and fairness with which we pursue our reporting. Yes, it’s nasty out there. We are called names. We are accused of terrible things. Our work is regularly denigrated. Those who benefit from an opaque status quo can, and often do, say anything they can think of to discredit us. And yet there is no place for retaliation in our reporting. We refuse to fight fire with fire. 

It’s not always easy. We’re all human. But we stick to the high road because that’s what our professional standards demand and, more importantly, because Wyoming deserves the facts, not the mud-slinging.

I’m not so Pollyannaish as to believe that transparency is a panacea. Do I think good journalism can solve all of our myriad challenges? No, I don’t. But I do know that we can’t solve any of our problems without it. If we — and yes, it’s going to take all of us — are going to find answers, it’s going to take ready, reliable access to verifiable information for all. The competition of ideas can not be conducted in an arena of falsehoods.

That, quite simply, is why WyoFile exists. To empower our neighbors — whether we agree with them or not — with the information they need to participate in civic life.

It’s no gimme. It hasn’t been for a long time, it gets harder every year, and it can not be taken for granted. The moment it is, it’s lost, to everyone’s detriment.

Together, however, we can and will ensure Wyoming retains the power of sunshine. Through community support, WyoFile has in recent years managed to quadruple its team, quintuple its budget and multiply its reach and impact by more than a factor 10 — all while our profession as a whole faces blistering headwinds. We’re demonstrating that when we think of access to factual information about current events as an essential public service — much like the food bank, volunteer fire department or disaster response providers — we’re able to serve all corners of this great state and unlock our greatest strengths. 

Please join us in providing sunshine the Wyoming way — neighbors helping neighbors. Let your leaders know you expect answers. And, if you’re able, please consider joining our thousands of members with a donation today.