Remedy for distrust is transparency

One thing that has remained constant in my 30 years in journalism is the importance of transparency in establishing and maintaining public trust. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, we say, and in the absence of sunlight rumors fill the void of truth and misdeeds continue unabated.

By YVONNE MINTZ, TPA President 2026-27

Never in our lifetime have we seen misinformation spread so rapidly, yet still some governmental entities refuse to release even basic facts that would help set the record straight.

That was the message I took to Austin on Aug. 26 when I testified at the Texas House of Representatives interim committee on governmental oversight. The committee’s charge includes examining the Texas Public Information Act and Texas Open Meetings Act. Public notice is also the scope of their work before the next legislative session convenes in 2027.

Officials at the hearing presented arguments about a large volume of public information requests burdening their staff. In my experience at our paper in Brazoria County, though, some cities, school district and police departments are contributing to that problem by forcing journalists to file open records requests for information that should not require written request to receive.

My reporters have been asked to file open records requests for basic stuff like budget documents, policy manuals, votes from a council meeting and agenda packets. Basic cover-sheet type information on a car accident, burglary, police chase — things reporters should and often do get in an interview with a public information officer or a press release — sometimes are withheld.

That’s not true of all agencies, certainly, but it happens enough that it slows the reporting process and creates more work for people responsible for fulfilling those requests. Even worse, it damages the credibility of local government.

Blanket “under investigation” reasoning for withholding basic information, for example, gives oxygen to personal narratives that are more damaging to communities than if police released what they could release that would not truly put their investigation at risk.

Freedom of Information Foundation Executive Director Kelley Shannon put forth recommendations to strengthen the Texas Public Information Act by adding enforcement mechanisms against governments that seek to delay release of clearly public information.

These recommendations deserve our support.

We live in an era of deep distrust in government. The remedy to that is more transparency.

For example, taxpayers deserve to know how their money is spent and what might be coming in next door. Newspaper public notice is critical to that.

Yet in every session of the Texas Legislature there are lawmakers who file bills proposing to eliminate newspaper notice requirements, allowing governmental entities to instead post their notices on their own websites.

Brazoria County has 24 incorporated cities and towns and at least seven school districts, two local college districts, a massive port and a bevy of municipal utilities districts. Imagine a taxpayer being expected to visit each of those websites to find information on tax rate changes, bond elections, rezoning proposals, annexation proposals or energy and water issues that affect their quality of life and property values.

Newspapers, in print and online, reach more eyes than ever before, and public notice in our publications has evolved along with our industry to reach readers on multiple platforms.

As busy journalists and newspaper executives we are not always the best at telling our own stories. Now is a time to change that.

We need to remind people that in addition to our print editions, Texas papers publish public notices on our websites — at no additional cost to the taxpayer. They also upload automatically to the Texas Press Association’s statewide aggregate public notice website, texaspublicnotices.com.

TPA’s online database includes free push-email notifications for any type of public notice in the state for anyone who wants them. Sign up for them, and encourage your readers to do the same.

I have one other ask. Before we hit crunch time in Austin, share challenges you are facing in obtaining clearly public information with your lawmaker and with me, so I can carry those concerns forward.

Rumors and conspiracies run amok on social media, but Texas newspapers remain where people turn when they want to cut through all that. We owe it to our readers to fight for their right to know and to deliver the answers.

Yvonne Mintz is publisher of The Facts in Brazoria County and vice president of content for Southern Newspapers. She is president of the Texas Press Association and vice president of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. Email her at Yvonne.mintz@thefacts.com.