Is the Sun Shining? A Qualitative Study on the Presence of Sunshine Laws in the College and University Journalism Curriculum

Abstract

This case study focusing on journalism curriculum in Tennessee sheds light on the obstacles that journalism schools face in efforts to include more instruction of sunshine laws into courses. Journalists use these laws to gather information to write their stories, either by attending public meetings or by filing open records requests. This study identified three issues—curriculum structure, faculty background, and ongoing sunshine law developments—as emergent themes that may pose similar concerns for journalism educators elsewhere. Pedagogical recommendations also are offered.

Keywords

sunshine laws media law journalism curriculum open meetings open records open government

When gathering information to write stories, either by attending public meetings or submitting open records requests, a journalist relies on sunshine laws as a main tool. The critical role the press plays in a free society amplifies the need for competent and trained journalists to watch how public business is conducted, even in today’s modern digital and socially electronic world. However, this digital world also complicates state sunshine laws, creating a dilemma of what constitutes a record, which ones governments are required to keep, and how long they are supposed to keep them (Eason, 2011).

Technology also poses other emerging issues that continue to be explored and debated on the state level. For instance, one of the top three public records inquiries among Tennessee’s public agencies and citizens relates to whether citizens could bring in their own copying equipment or scanners to make copies instead of paying the government agency to make them (Fisher, 2013). People want to bring in their portable scanners, wands, or iPhones to make copies. Some states allow it. There is nothing in the Tennessee Open Records Act that specifically requires a government agency to allow citizens to make their own copies in this way, but there is nothing that prohibits it either. Citizens and media representatives use these devices to make their own copies in an effort to save money.

Journalism schools frequently are reinventing themselves because of digital innovations to deliver news content quicker in efforts to keep pace with the industry. This development yields to the topic of whether journalism programs at colleges and universities prepare their students adequately on open government laws. For universities whose journalism and mass communication departments, schools, or colleges teach sunshine laws, the issue is relevant for journalism education, especially as journalism school curriculum seeks to reflect what is happening in the profession. This research explores this issue by using journalism instruction in Tennessee as a one-state case study.

Background

In this section, the discussion is organized into three parts that serve as the backdrop for this study: (a) an explanation of the most recent issues surrounding Tennessee’s sunshine laws, (b) information on how sunshine laws fit into the journalism curriculum, and (c) information on current curricular modifications that affect how the instruction of sunshine laws is regarded.

Tennessee’s Sunshine Laws

With the advocacy of the Tennessee Coalition of Open Government, recent issues in open government have emerged for journalists and citizens. For instance, since 2011, state lawmakers have sought ways that would force Tennesseans to pay for the right to inspect government records. One proposed anti-openness initiative would allow state and local governments to charge a fee every time an employee spends longer than an hour responding to an open records request. Under the current law, government agencies in Tennessee may charge a fee for copies made to fulfill open records inquiries, but not for inspections. Many journalists, activists, and some public officials are against such proposals (Farmer, 2015).

Another issue involves the use of body-worn cameras by law enforcement, which is under review by the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee. Across the United States, many law enforcement agencies are moving toward the use of body cameras as a way to improve policing and accountability after a series of high-profile incidents in which police were perceived to have applied excessive force in handling suspects. In addition, the federal government has begun to fund body-worn cameras at the local level through grants (Fisher, 2015). However, this development has raised several questions relating to disclosure of video under sunshine laws. In 2014, body camera legislation was filed in several states, and 10 adopted new laws regarding public access to body camera footage (Fisher, 2015). The Tennessee legislature decided to shelve a bill until the issue could be studied further.

Journalism Curriculum and Sunshine Laws

For editors, knowledge of media law is an important skill for a journalism graduate to have (Dickson & Brandon, 2000). In fact, editors thought journalism ethics, media law, and the media’s impact on society were all more important than any of the newspaper management courses taught in a few programs (Arwood, 1993). Educators and editors have ranked legal concerns as among the top 25 skills deemed most important to teach (Auman & Cook, 1995).

A study by the Associated Press Media Editors (APME), in conjunction with Virginia Commonwealth University, found that nearly all print and broadcast executives listed writing, reporting, ethics, and interviewing skills as very important aspects of journalism training and that government affairs, current events, and communication law were very important journalism courses (Dickson & Brandon, 2000). Similarly, other research has shown that daily newspaper executives are significantly more likely to believe that the broad topics of the mass communication field, media history, and media law were priorities (Dickson & Brandon, 2000).

Dickson and Brandon (2000) found that the biggest gap between the journalism educators and professional journalists was over the importance of conceptual media courses (communication theory, media history) and professional media courses (media law, media ethics). Dickson and Brandon, in the same research, concluded that journalism education has a greater purpose than producing news reporters; the field should prepare graduates for a variety of media and non-media jobs as well as for graduate school. Kelley (2007) said the ideal curriculum should train critics as well as reporters and writers, combining professional practice and other academic disciplines so that the journalist is educated as a whole. Yet, Kelley concluded, there should be a tighter connection between journalism education and democracy, upon which open government laws are based.

A Renewed Journalism Curriculum

The primary priority for many journalism schools is incorporating digital formats—blogging, websites, online content, and social media—into an established and already packed curriculum, within an academic environment where the pace of change is slow (Hermida, 2010). Undoubtedly, social media, for instance, can help journalists reach out to audiences, seeking ideas for stories and fresh perspectives on stories they are writing. Plus, journalism students are encouraged to be active on social media to their sources, demonstrating they are active participants in a conversation rather than just information seekers (Hermida, 2010). However, these new media technologies for the industry present concerns that challenge the most fundamental truth in journalism, in which the professional journalist is the one who determines what the public sees, hears, and reads (Deuze, 2001).

Nevertheless, many journalism programs have modified their curriculum to reflect the built-in component of social media and other online tools into news gathering practices, or the curriculum has been overhauled significantly so that the majority of the courses can apply to all different types of media, not just print. This is the idea behind convergence journalism training. Under this pedagogical model of convergence journalism, most programs with convergence curricula have implemented what could best be described as a multidisciplinary approach, which represents a lower level of integration across media. Nicholson (2009) indicated that 72% of surveyed school administrators said they thought it was important for curriculum to include cross-media learning. Lowrey (2003) concluded that the hiring trends in journalism explained why journalism educators changed the curriculum and offered a program that produces highly qualified journalists who perform and create quality work.

Research Question

Colleges and universities have reshaped their journalism curricula because of the digital evolution. Many states also have modified their sunshine laws to accommodate technological changes. However, what continues to compound the dilemma is the specific definition of what constitutes a record, which ones governments are required to keep and how long they are supposed to keep them (Eason, 2011). This is difficult for state governments today because of the creation of digital records, which may or may not be addressed in a state’s open government law. Some rules have been established through court precedent or other state laws, but governmental bodies are largely left to set their own policies, leading to inconsistencies. This lack of clarity over what a record is has left many cities in the dark about what is required. Like many other states, Tennessee has faced similar dilemmas. To handle some of these problems, Tennessee legislators in 2008 created the Office of the Open Records Counsel, which has issued legal opinions on questions largely pertaining to digital records. These opinions have concluded that emails to and from public employees, city council members, citizen members of public boards, and others are subject to the open records law, provided they share information relating to the official business of the government. Confusions also exist in defining how many members are needed to make a meeting legal.

The issues in this case study could reflect similar problems in other states, especially those that have modified their open government laws to reflect the digital era. With these issues at hand, it would seem that adding more instruction of sunshine laws into the journalism curriculum would be the simple solution to help the student aspiring to be a more proactive journalist. If this were the case then, this one-state study explores the challenges in teaching sunshine laws in the journalism curriculum:

RQ1: What obstacles do journalism schools see in restructuring the curriculum to devote more attention to sunshine laws in their courses?

Method

In this case study, the researcher used a web survey to identify the obstacles journalism schools encounter in offering greater instruction of sunshine laws in their curriculum. The researcher received web survey responses from journalism program directors and chairs at 12 colleges and universities. Seventeen schools—six 4-year institutions in the Tennessee Board of Regents system, three institutions in the University of Tennessee system, and eight private colleges and universities in the state—were invited to participate in the study during the time frame between August and October 2011. All 17 schools offer a journalism degree program, and this was determined by the researcher through a check of each school’s program offerings on the school’s website. To explain further, the researcher reviewed 46 websites of all

4-year, public and private colleges and universities in Tennessee. Of the 46 schools, 17 offer a bachelor’s degree program in journalism. The web link to the survey questionnaire on surveymonkey.com was sent by email to department chairs or directors in the journalism and mass communication programs at the 17 schools.

The online survey, which included both Likert-type scale items and demographic questions, was developed by the researcher and pilot tested with 15 journalism faculty members and news professionals from Tennessee and Kentucky to gauge content validity. The pilot test helped to discern whether the questions and the response items in the survey instrument were easy to understand and whether the questions related to the purpose of the study. The pilot study participants responded to the survey prototype and offered any feedback on how questions could be improved.

In addition, course catalogs found on each of the 17 journalism programs’ websites were used to review course descriptions for any indication of instruction in media law, with keywords identified and coded. Keywords involved any media law concept: “libel,” “privacy,” “copyright,” “freedom of information,” “sunshine laws,” “access to information,” and “right to know.” The researcher entered the keywords into an Excel spreadsheet, which then was uploaded into the NVivo 9 qualitative text software to produce a weighted percentage. This information was useful to observe the kind of weight given to the concept of sunshine laws.

After survey data were collected, and continuing through April 2015, the researcher conducted interviews with five journalism department and school chairs in light of recent issues and updates surrounding Tennessee’s sunshine laws. The interviews featured loosely structured questions that asked respondents to discuss main obstacles in wanting to place a greater emphasis on sunshine laws. Interviewees were asked two main questions. Question 1: “Should there be a greater emphasis placed on open government laws in journalism schools?” They also were asked “Why?” or “Why not?” to explain their answer. Question 2: “What are the main obstacles to incorporating additional instruction of these laws into the curriculum?” Other questions and discussions then were explored based on their responses. The researcher entered interviewees’ replies into NVivo 9 to sort and connect information with the 2011 survey data into themes.

Data Description

The questionnaire was organized into three sections, including consent to participate (Section I), Likert-type scale items to assess attitudes about the instruction of open government laws in journalism education (Section II), and demographics and information pertaining to the instruction of open government laws in the journalism program (Section III). The survey questionnaire included a consent form (Section I) approved by the institutional review board. Those who participated in the survey had to agree to participate in the survey to proceed to the main sections of the questionnaire.

Section II used Likert-type scale items to identify attitudes of faculty members toward open government laws and their role in the journalism curriculum. Information was collected concerning the extent to which faculty members in the program agree with certain statements. Some of the statements included the following: “Legislative changes to Tennessee’s open meetings and open records laws are taught to journalism students”; “A separate course on open government laws should be included in the curriculum”; “Open government laws generally are ignored in journalism school curriculum”; “Journalism graduates with coursework in open government laws have an advantage in the job marketplace over journalism graduates without the coursework”; and “Instructors’ lack of background in open government laws is an obstacle to increased emphasis on community journalism.” Each statement provided five response choices: strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, and strongly disagree.

For Section III, demographic data on each journalism program were collected to help determine the extent of instruction related to open government laws in the program. The responses also provided data on the programs in general and the professional background of the school’s faculty. Some of the items included the number of years of experience respondent has on open government laws; number of journalism faculty, both full and part time, the institution has; number of faculty teaching in the news sequence of the program; whether a media law course is required in the news sequence of the journalism program; and how many class sessions are devoted to instruction on sunshine laws.

Analysis

Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to address the research question, while the five interviews helped to provide a greater examination of the data. Descriptive statistics in the form of frequency and content analysis assessing the keywords and topics of study listed in the course descriptions helped to tell the kind of obstacles present in the curriculum. For descriptive data, IBM SPSS Software Version 20 was used. A qualitative software program, NVivo 9, was used to sort and connect information into source classifications, or themes. Queries in NVivo help monitor the frequency in which words or potential themes occur. In this case study, the researcher entered keywords and content from the course descriptions, as well as responses from the survey and interviews, into NVivo, which then helped the researcher to sort the keywords by frequency count and identify certain themes. These themes are explained in the “Findings” section.

Assumption

The underlying assumption of this case study was that despite increased modifications to state sunshine laws, instruction of these laws in journalism courses in colleges and universities is not keeping pace or rigor, failing to prepare students adequately on how sunshine laws should be used as part of their news gathering duties.

Findings

Course descriptions for media law were reviewed. All 17 public and private institutions offer a media law course. None of the course descriptions at these universities specifically stated whether sunshine or open government laws were a major topic. Rather, the course descriptions listed some common topics, most notably the First Amendment, libel, privacy, and copyright. Based on a word frequency count, “libel” and “privacy” were the most popular topics cited in nine course descriptions, and “copyright” appeared in eight course descriptions.

The researcher grouped survey and interview responses into classifications determined from a word frequency count generated by the NVivo 9 qualitative software. After all the classifications were connected, three significant themes emerged as areas that may prevent greater and effective inclusion of sunshine laws in the curriculum—curriculum structure, faculty background, and ongoing sunshine law developments. These are explained below in detail.

Curriculum Structure

Overall, respondents are concerned with how well students understand sunshine laws, but an overwhelming response (88.9%) disagreed or strongly disagreed that a separate course in open government laws is necessary in the curriculum. As such, more than half (55.6%) agreed that the study of sunshine laws is adequately covered in the journalism and/or mass communication sequence and that the current structure of the curriculum was not flexible enough to allow increased instruction in sunshine laws.

Editing and investigative reporting were the top two recommendations as areas that needed more emphasis in journalism curriculum, whereas the choice for open government laws was not ranked as greatly. See Table 1 to see how respondents ranked the proposed recommendations.

Table 1.

Top Three Recommendations on Where More Emphasis is Needed in Journalism Curriculum.

	N	M
Editing	11	1.83
Investigative reporting	12	2.23
Production	3	2.00
Local government	5	2.20
Management	0
Marketing	1	2.00
Advertising	0
Business	2	2.00
Open government laws	2	3.00
Other	4	1.00
No other courses are needed	0

Specific interview responses to support this theme included “Not enough room in curriculum” and “Present curriculum is full and offers little opportunity to add new courses.” One interview participant said a separate course in sunshine laws was not necessary:

I don’t think you need a course on just open government laws, since we teach a law class, and I think it fits better in practical courses like advanced reporting when students actually get to use the laws. But there probably isn’t room in the curriculum to teach a whole on just that.

In addition, although the majority of respondents believe that journalism programs do not ignore open government laws in coursework, participants felt there were “too many open government laws to contain within instruction” and “frequent changes in the laws.” See Table 2 for a detailed observation of responses. A second interviewee indicated that these changes are covered in coursework when appropriate:

I always include legal units in both my undergraduate and graduate classes where relevant to the mass communication content. In particular, where relevant, I emphasize state statutes such as defamation of character (called libel, slander or both varying by state), sunshine laws or open meetings acts. I also include the federal level Freedom of Information Act and in both federal and state cases I emphasize the exceptions to these laws.

Table 2.

Reasons Why Respondents Believed Sunshine Laws Are Not Emphasized in the Journalism Curriculum.

	N	M
There are too many open government laws to contain within instruction, as each state has its own “sunshine” version	7	1.71
Frequent changes in the laws make it difficult to teach sunshine issues	7	2.57
Open government laws are not regarded as highly important by professional newsrooms	1	2.00
Background of faculty does not include sunshine laws	6	2.00
I do not think journalism programs ignore open government laws in coursework	9	1.00

Faculty Background

Based on the results, an instructor’s limited experience in open government laws is an obstacle to teaching sunshine laws. Of the 146 full-time faculty members teaching in journalism programs in Tennessee, 79 have experience with Tennessee’s open government laws. Of the 94 part-time faculty members, 26 have experience in applying the laws to previous journalism work.

Although most journalism faculty, according to the questionnaire results, have had experience working for daily or weekly newspapers or the wire services, respondents said a lack of “faculty understanding” and “properly trained journalism instructors” contribute to the problem of having weak instruction in sunshine laws. In addition, this theme can be observed in an interview response from a participant who said a professor’s limited background is likely an obstacle to the increased instruction of sunshine laws in the journalism curriculum:

The open meetings and sunshine laws vary by state and it’s somewhat of a problem for faculty with a doctorate from a different state who will likely shift jobs several times in their careers to keep pace with subtle differences.

This obstacle also can be observed in how much classroom time faculty spend on the laws. The majority of the respondents estimated they devote less than 5% in other journalism courses teaching open government laws. Others estimated they devote between 5% and 10% or between 11% and 20% to the subject.

Ongoing Sunshine Law Developments

Seven respondents indicated that there were too many open government laws to teach, as each state has its own sunshine version. The respondents also said that frequent changes in the laws make it difficult to educate students on sunshine issues. The responses also indicated that legislative changes to the laws are not taught in courses. An interview response also hinted on this theme:

Being able to recognize sunshine laws as a succinctly different area other than being contained within another subset would be difficult because of the progress being made on these laws.

Discussion

The results of this study provide some insights for the following research question:

RQ1: What obstacles do journalism schools see in restructuring the curriculum to devote more attention to sunshine laws in their courses?

To answer this question, this study identified three obstacles that inhibit the inclusion of sunshine laws in coursework: curriculum structure, faculty background, and ongoing sunshine law developments. These themes lace together and support the dynamics that the “Background” section of this article discussed earlier. The journalism industry has reconstructed itself so much that academic administrators and faculty are quickly beginning to overhaul the curriculum to mirror the convergence culture that is happening outside the classroom, particularly with strong advancements from technology and social media. In addition, the experiences of the faculty are limited, and the subject of sunshine laws is only one aspect—if at all—taught in the media law courses, with increasing legislative changes making it difficult to stay current for instructional purposes.

The majority of the respondents indicated that the application of open government laws is covered adequately in their journalism programs. Although most of the respondents believed that the laws are not ignored in coursework, the majority of the course descriptions reviewed and coded indicated that the topic of sunshine laws does not carry as much weight as the concepts of libel, privacy, and copyright. Furthermore, the majority of the schools participating in the study said they require their students to complete media law as a mandatory course for degree completion. However, the majority of respondents who said media law courses are required at their institution also indicated that they do not follow closely nor teach the legislative changes made to the state’s laws to their students or bills proposed to alter the laws. This is reflected in the content analysis of the course descriptions, which indicate that media law courses are concentrating on the broad topics of libel, slander, and copyright. This observation also is noticed in one participant’s interview:

This is just not an area where I perceive there to be a big problem in journalism education. We could always improve, certainly, in all things, but we do teach this. Our students, for example, participate in Sunshine Week activities like asking for documents at various offices and recording the response. There are other issues in journalism education, but this isn’t a big one. This we understand, because it is not new.

In addressing the obstacle of faculty background differences, the responses gathered from the questionnaire indicate that journalism faculty members devote little time, less than 5%, teaching open government laws in their courses. Ironically, however, most of the faculty members surveyed said they do believe that students who are taught these laws have a greater advantage in the job market over those students who lack knowledge of these laws and the changes surrounding them. If that is true, then improved instruction of open access and sunshine laws should be considered as a more viable component in the journalism curriculum.

The area of open government laws might be a challenge for many faculty members to teach. Journalism school and degree program directors reported that a total of more than half of the faculty have experience with Tennessee’s sunshine laws. This could be a similar finding for other programs throughout the United States, in which many faculty members might not be familiar with the open government laws in the state where they teach. Others might not understand the intricacies woven into the laws. Some respondents indicated that an instructor’s limited background in these laws is an obstacle for them to teach them effectively. Likewise, their replies, when asked about the major obstacles to having a greater emphasis of these laws in the classroom, support the finding that journalism faculty might not be well versed in open government laws.

One interview respondent referred to a school’s or department’s accreditation as an obstacle, which is worthy to note even though it was not a major theme that emerged in this study. In other words, according to the survey response, accreditation requirements emphasize other areas believed to be more important than open government laws. Five schools participating in the study are accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education of Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC). Across the United States, about one fourth of the 400 or so collegiate journalism programs have pursued voluntary accreditation from the ACEJMC (Reader, 2011). Unlike some academic departments whose very existence depends on successful reaccreditation, journalism programs that lose or never seek accreditation can succeed. This indicates that the weight of accreditation has no bearing on whether sunshine laws are taught intensively.

Recommendations and Conclusion

Journalism programs should evaluate current coursework to see where greater instruction of sunshine laws could benefit. Because many journalism schools and departments are overhauling their curriculum to fit a multimedia focus, and state legislatures are modifying their sunshine laws in light of digital demands, according to the literature presented earlier to offer background knowledge, the results from this study can be useful in similar situations that might be occurring in other journalism programs across the United States. In addition, the experiences of the faculty are limited, and the subject of sunshine laws is only one aspect—if at all—taught in the media law courses, with increasing legislative changes making it difficult to keep pace with instruction.

The researcher recommends a few curriculum enhancements for journalism programs. First, journalism programs should identify courses where instruction of sunshine laws can be incorporated. Possible course recommendations might include news reporting, investigative or advanced reporting, and of course, media law. A special topics course for a term or semester also is a recommendation. Second, journalism school curriculum should include instruction on significant differences in states’ sunshine laws while focusing heavily on the laws for where the school is located. Doing so provides a good understanding of the entities subjected to the law, definitions, and exemptions. One pedagogical method to teach sunshine laws is assign students an open records audit (Stepanek, 2012), in which efforts are made to assess how public offices mandated under open records laws comply with the statute. An open records audit provides the promise of producing the actual acquisition of various records, which, in turn, should demystify the process of governance for many students otherwise veiled from official workings, while providing a channel for potential future news pieces. Third, faculty members who teach courses that have been identified to provide greater instruction of sunshine laws should be encouraged to seek instructional guidance from state press association attorneys, local and surrounding news reporters, and law professors. These sources also could serve as guest speakers for classroom discussion.

The value of transparency is becoming lost in this new world of convergence journalism. That is not to say this research opposes the changes made in the curriculum; actually, it is quite the contrary. A strong curriculum should imbue students with the history, legal aspects, and principles of journalism, engaging students in reading about and intensely discussing newsroom issues before they are faced with on-the-job decisions (Day, 2002). However, we as journalism educators need to ask whether these changes strengthen the call to duty journalists have had historically for the last 300 years—to keep the public informed, to be the watchdog for citizens—and that is a social responsibility that becomes possible with effective instruction of sunshine laws.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Melony Shemberger, EdD, is an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at Murray State University. She teaches journalism and public relations courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Her teaching and research address freedom of information issues, journalism history, business journalism, and pedagogy.

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