Investigative reporters face a lot more dead ends these days.

‘A curtain has gradually been coming down over government records and access,’ New York Times reporter David Barstow said to a crowd of Syracuse University students and faculty Tuesday evening at the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in Newhouse III.

Barstow, who won the Pulitzer Prize for public service reporting in 2004, spoke of what he called ‘a disturbing trend’ of government secrecy. Barstow described roadblocks, which hinder investigative journalists like himself, from doing their jobs.

He cited such issues as the increasingly unnecessary classification of public records combined with lengthy delays in bureaucratic responses to requests for these records, the jailing of journalists for protecting sources and the diminishing rights of whistleblowers.

Barstow has seen the changes and challenges investigative journalists are facing firsthand. He was nominated for three Pulitzer Prizes in 1997 and 1998 for his investigative work for The St. Petersburg Times before winning in 2004 for his work at The New York Times on death and injury among U.S. workers.

In his speech, sponsored by Student Association, Barstow emphasized that a closed government doesn’t just affect journalists.

‘What this all adds up to,’ he said, ‘is the public now knows less about what our government is doing. And what we do know is increasingly controlled by those who hold the levers of power.’

The assault on public records

For an investigative journalist, public records are the bread and butter of reporting, Barstow said. But in the past few years, accessing such vital information has become an increasingly difficult task.

‘Access to government records at all levels of government is under assault,’ he said.

Thousands of additional pages of federal documents have been classified in recent years for reasons of national security or privacy. Barstow acknowledged that sometimes classification is necessary, but said that often when the documents are unclassified, journalists discover the security concerns were not valid.

‘Far too often what we really come across is the hiding of information that is embarrassing or politically inconvenient,’ he said.

And the records that journalists do get to see are often chosen and censored by government officials.

‘We are far more dependant on officialdom deciding what we get to see,’ he said.

Barstow shared the frustration many investigative journalists have with the Federal Freedom of Information Act, a federal law that requires government agencies to make such public records available to journalists. He described the act – which ‘was meant to be the bedrock for the public’s right to know’ – as having ‘become a cruel joke.’

Though the law requires disclosure of information within 20 days of a request, Barstow said requests often take several years and that ‘absurd reasons are given for denials.’

‘A lot of reporters I know don’t bother with the Freedom of Information Act,’ he said.

Attack on sources and whistleblowers

Not only is the government limiting access to public records, but it is also going after journalists for protecting sources.

‘Our country is back in the business of putting journalists in jail,’ he said, citing journalists put on trial, such as his paper’s Judith Miller and The San Francisco Chronicle reporters who broke the baseball steroid scandal. ‘It’s something we’re all beginning to think about a lot more.’

The journalists from The San Francisco Chronicle were sentenced but never served jail time.

The threats of subpoenas and court dates have made journalists like Barstow stop and think a lot more lately about details such as phone records and e-mail trails.

‘We joke we’re beginning to act more like drug dealers than reporters,’ he said.

But more importantly, Barstow said the increasing government pressure on journalists to reveal whistleblowers has made people much more hesitant to speak out about wrongdoing.

‘When sources can’t trust a reporter’s promise of protection, they will quickly clam up,’ he said. ‘These are the sources who matter the most to investigative reporting.’

Limited resources

Barstow realizes these challenges are occurring at a time when the newspaper industry is in ‘big trouble.’

‘In the past few years, thousands of reporters have been fired,’ he said. ‘And there has been a substantial cutback in our most ambitious investigative reporting.’

Such cutbacks are not occurring at the country’s largest newspapers, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post or The Los Angeles Times, Barstow said. Rather, it is the mid-size regional papers that are suffering the most.

‘Editors are being forced to make brutal decisions,’ he said. Editors often don’t have to decide between investigative reporting and covering the basic beats, such as City Hall or the local court system.

Barstow cited substantial decreases in contest entries in investigative reporting as evidence of the cutback in investigative work across the country.

The silver lining

But it’s not all bad news.

Barstow opened his speech by complimenting the solid investigative work that has been done in recent years, such as stories on government wiretapping and scandals within the Catholic Church.

‘This is the kind of reporting that changes laws, changes minds,’ he said.

And despite critics’ claims that people don’t care, Barstow said he believes the public has a large appetite for investigative work. ‘They want the straight scoop,’ he said.

But in order for journalists to be better able to do their jobs, the current climate must change, he said. And change will ‘require an outrage on the part of the public,’ he said.

Barstow urged the public and journalists to speak up for open government and federal shield laws, which protect journalists from having to reveal sources.

‘We,’ he said, ‘have to fight like the dickens for our ability to have a free and independent press.’

Published on November 27, 2007 at 12:00 pm