Nearly 70% of investigative journalists in the U.S. reported “limited access to records or sources” as their greatest barrier in doing accountability journalism, according to a survey from the University of Florida released Wednesday.
The survey, released in conjunction with UF’s awarding of the Collier Prize for State and Government Accountability, found that many investigative journalists face issues obtaining public records and interviews with government officials. Compounding their difficulties are financial, political and public pressures. Fifty-one journalists working at state or regional news organizations responded to the survey in March.
“There’s always been pushback on access to records,” said Collier Prize director Rick Hirsch, who previously worked as managing editor of the Miami Herald. “But it certainly has gotten worse.”
More than half of respondents — 55% — identified “delays, denials, and excessive costs of public records requests” as a major challenge in doing accountability journalism, while 44% reported “difficulty securing interviews or comments” from public officials.
The winner of the Collier Prize, an Associated Press investigation into prison labor and the companies that profit from it, experienced firsthand the difficulty of obtaining public records. Reporters filed records requests in all 50 states, but most were denied or ignored. The reporters had to turn to shoe-leather journalism, and one of them, Robin McDowell, followed a cattle truck from a Louisiana farm to a Texas slaughterhouse in an effort to track products made by prison labor, Hirsch said.
Less than 20% of respondents said they found it easy to get interviews or comments from public officials. In fact, 42% said they had been excluded from a briefing by an administrative or political leader at least once. In an era when politicians have easy access to social media and partisan outlets, many have shunned traditional journalists. The White House is currently engaged in a legal battle with the AP after it curtailed the outlet’s access to President Donald Trump in February.
Survey respondents also cited public indifference, disinformation and spin and threats or intimidation as challenges in pursuing accountability reporting. Twenty-seven percent reported political pressure creating “hesitation around certain stories.” UF hopes to explore this finding in future iterations of the survey, Hirsch said.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents said “tight budgets and limited resources” made accountability journalism difficult. The media industry — especially legacy outlets — has been in decline for the past several decades, and many outlets have cut their investigative teams as a result.
Hirsch said he hopes newsroom leaders reading the report understand the importance of backing up their reporters and fighting for records
“I look at the public records law as being like a muscle,” Hirsch said. “If you don’t exercise it, it atrophies, and I think we’re seeing a lot of that all over the country.”
