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A proposal by Rep. Brad Christ would set up a state fund to help Missourians cover adoption expenses. Donors to the fund would receive a state tax credit.

San Diego Central Jail

San Diego County Sheriff's Department

When sources aren’t allowed to talk, journalists turn to public records. And when journalists can’t obtain public records, they look for insiders. But when all are unavailable, it becomes exceedingly difficult for journalists to report the news. 

That’s the situation often encountered by journalists looking to investigate U.S. jails and prisons and the challenges facing America’s over 2 million incarcerated people.

If journalists try to talk to prison officials, they’re routed to public information officers, who give them little besides official PR. If they try to request public documents, the government stalls indefinitely with bogus claims that the documents are exempted from open records laws. And good luck talking to incarcerated people themselves. In some states, it’s outright illegal for them to speak to the press. In others, they face “relentless retaliation” for attempting to bring publicity to prison conditions. 

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) recently joined a legal brief that seeks to address the records problem. A group of news outlets successfully sought access to sealed records about deaths and serious injuries at jails in San Diego County, California, from the Sheriff’s Department Critical Incident Review Board, or CIRB. 

The county appealed in hopes of maintaining secrecy, claiming that transparency would undermine the ability of officials to communicate candidly.

But the brief responded that “CIRB investigations and related documents have been shielded from the public for over twenty years. … Given the increasing number of deaths, that secrecy hardly seems to be facilitating any meaningful change.”  

That’s exactly right. Whenever the government claims that a lack of transparency somehow benefits the public, courts should be extremely skeptical and demand proof, not speculation. Virtually every time — whether in cases involving jails and prisons or national defense — the real reason for secrecy is that officials don’t want to be embarrassed.

The same applies to restrictions on officials’ or incarcerated people’s communications with the press. The former restriction violates the First Amendment rights of government employees, in addition to depriving the public of important information. To justify the latter restriction, officials often say that violent crime victims shouldn’t have to hear from their assailants in the media — a constitutionally inadequate excuse even putting aside that, for some reason, those policies are rarely limited to violent criminals. 

Recent lawsuits in Pennsylvania and South Carolina challenge restrictions on media access to prison employees and incarcerated people, respectively. It’ll likely take many more lawsuits and much more advocacy, but hopefully, sometime soon, Americans will be able to see for themselves the inner workings of the world’s largest system of mass incarceration. 

You can read the brief in the San Diego case here or below.

Mahdi Salah Gayar was driving a Maserati when he crashed into a pickup truck in south St. Louis, killing the truck's driver.

Paul Goldschmidt adds a new award to his arsenal and slugged the St. Louis Cardinals' first spring homer in a busy day for the team. The Cardinals hop back into the win column, though perhaps with growing concerns on the big-league roster come Opening Day.

The NAACP is speaking out about a noose that was found after a mechanic allegedly spoke up about faulty brakes on a school bus.

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A Florissant father is facing charges for using his young son to help him take advantage of people's kindness and scam them out of money.

Colin Murphy, co-founder of Boom Magazine — a queer publication focusing on the bi-state region — has died after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 53 years old. He is remembered for his positivity and mentorship despite the adversity he faced as a gay man with HIV as well as his passion for providing a news platform by and for queer people in the bi-state region.

This morning I read a piece in the New York Times about the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis. I had never heard of it before. In a nutshell, a group of scientists announced in 2007 that they had discovered evidence of a group of meteor impacts dating to about 12,900 years ago. They believed these impacts ...continue reading "Did a bunch of meteors hit earth a few thousand years ago?"

As KDHX (88.1 FM) once again sticks out its hands and asks for money during its pledge drive this week, the ongoing behind-the-scenes drama sees the station's leadership continuing to shut out its staff of volunteer DJs from the organization's governance. For the upcoming vote for a new board member, the board put forth only one name — leading critics to label the election as "a mockery of democracy" that "flouts the [KDHX parent company] Double Helix bylaws." Caryn Haddix is the lone candidate on the ballot for this week's election, for which all active volunteers, also known as associates, are eligible to vote.

More than 10% of Missourians — about 500,000 people— reported having medical debt between 2019 and 2021.

The owner of a prominent shopping center has put it up for sale.

To You, I Go (2023) is Jessica Page’s visual love letter to St. Louis. Although St. Louis is rarely romanticized, Page aims to showcase the softest purest side of her […]

The post To You, I Go appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

Billy Idol is set to headline the Project Pabst festival, happening July 27-28 at Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon. Idol will headline opening night of the festival, with Big Thief confirmed…

Source

“This is essentially a property rights issue, a landlord should not be forced to retain tenants without compensation against their will,” Trent said during an earlier committee hearing.

Anyone who follows Techdirt knows we’re very interested in the progress of Bluesky, the decentralized social network that embraces our concept of protocols over platforms. Bluesky recently ended its invite-only beta and opened its doors to the public, so it seems like a great time for a check-in, and who better to check in with […]

A Florissant man has been charged with shooting someone who mistakenly approached the wrong vehicle near The Grove.