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special agenda is being pursued that reflects special interests rather than more gen-eral interests.7
The public might be more effectively convinced that special interests did not domi-nate the discussion, if that was in fact the case, if more openness was apparent, both in the decisionmaking process and concerning the nature of disagreements. Open-ness in process assures the public that the decision does not reflect the exercise of special interests,8 and a summary of the discussion convinces the public that all im-portant arguments were considered, all sides were looked at, and a judgment was made that the weight of evidence came down in favor of the course of action being undertaken. After all, governments are elected in part to make these difficult judg-ment calls. What the public wants to know is that real deliberation has taken place.
come to emphasize the importance of intellectual property. The information that public officials gather and process is intellectual property in the same way that a innovation that could be patented would be. Using that intellectual property for private pur-poses is just as serious an offense against the public as any other appropriation of public property for private purposes. Naturally fully sharing that information may not be appropriate under some circumstances, that is, the important exceptions to the presumption for openness noted earlier.
In the United States the legal framework underlying the presumption that the public has a right to know is provided by the Freedom of Information Act that Con-gress passed in 1966. In principle, this law enables any citizen to gain access to any information in the public domain, with narrow exceptions for privacy, but such leg-islation can only be partially successful unless there is a genuine commitment to openness. Government officials may be careful in what they write down and what remains a “mouth-to-ear” secret, precisely because they do not want to disclose portant information to the public. While the law by itself is not enough, it is an im-portant step in the right direction, and in some developing countries it seems that just establishing a law allowing access where none existed before has got people asking for information.
A legal framework is part of the institutional infrastructure required for a trans-parent and open democracy. So too are a variety of public information institutions designed to ferret out information for the benefit of the public, including a free, and if necessary, adversarial press (as opposed to a captive press); a legitimate opposi-tion; and a myriad of public interest organizations to blow the whistle on the cloaked activities of special interest groups or simply to ensure that all sides of a debate have been heard. Clearly such institutions must have access to information to function effectively.
The press is among the most important of these information institutions. Like any institution the press faces incentives, not all of which work to enhance the overall quality of information and the transparency of decisionmaking. Even if we cannot easily remedy these limitations, we should be aware of the dangers. For instance, it has long been recognized that the existence of secrets gives rise to a press determined to ferret out the secrets; however, earlier I explained how secrecy gives rise to an artificial scarcity of knowledge and how such an artificial scarcity gives rise to rents.
One of the ways in which public officials reap the rents is to disclose secrets to those members of the press that treat them well. As a result, not only is the public deprived of timely information, but government officials use their control of infor-mation to distort inforinfor-mation in their favor, a distortion that goes well beyond the puff pieces that exaggerate the role and acumen of the officials who are being puffed up. This symbiotic relationship between the press and officialdom undermines con-fidence in both and interferes with the ability of a free press to carry out its essential functions. Can reporters be effective critics if their access to the information they
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require can be curtailed following the publication of a critical article? Some govern-ment agencies are particularly effective in manipulating the press this way. On one occasion, a reporter from an elite U.S. newspaper repeatedly got front page space for his coverage of a government agency, then remarkably quickly he was reassigned to cover automobiles in Detroit. He had evidently lost access after a critical report, and without access he simply could not get the stories. The lesson was not lost on other reporters.
The complex relationship between the press and transparency is illustrated by leaks, which have come to play an important role in information dissemination. The press must be relied upon not to disclose the source of their information. If reporters do reveal their sources, these sources will dry up. Indeed, if the source of a leak becomes public knowledge others within the government are likely to “sanction” the individual, denying that person access to the information or ostracizing him or her in some other way.
The nature of the bilateral relationship is such as to give an advantage to some public officials over others. It pays reporters to develop a good relationship with someone who leaks more regularly and more exclusively (excessive leaking dimin-ishes the value of the information being leaked), and who is likely to be a source for a long time. (If a reporter has a limited supply of puff pieces to give out, it is better to use them on those for whom the present discounted value of the information they are likely to disclose in the future is high.) Leaks thus become a two-edged sword:
they are an important way for getting information that would otherwise be secret into the public domain and an important way for government officials to shape cov-erage in ways that advance their own interests and causes. Leaks may lead to more information, but also to more distorted information.
The most important check against abuses is a competitive press that reflects a variety of interests. A concentration of media power is thus of concern not just be-cause of the resulting market power, which might lead to advertising rates being higher than they otherwise would be. Media that are excessively tied, for example, to financial interests, will not provide an adequate check against abuse by special inter-ests. The imbalance of resources will put some competitors at a disadvantage, both in ferreting out sources of information and in checking the accuracy of information.
In periods of perceived conflict—such as the U.S. War on Terrorism—a combina-tion of self-censorship and reader censorship may also undermine the ability of a supposedly free press to ensure democratic transparency and openness. Readers may feel that criticism of the government is unpatriotic and boycott critical media, while the media may censor themselves, either because they worry about losing their cus-tomer base, or because they too share the sense of patriotism. The Internet, which permits easy access to news coverage from abroad, may in the longer run provide some check, although patriotism itself leads to the discounting of these “foreign”
sources.
The press thus plays an essential role in the battle for openness, but is at the same time a central part of the “conspiracy of secrecy.” The press must commit itself to working for openness. Expecting reporters to disclose their secret sources inside the government or not to seek out exclusive sources of information is unrealistic, but more reporting on the reporting process itself is needed to expose the dangers of this nefarious system, if not the key players.