Bennett leaves strong FOI legacy

By Laurie Lattimore-Volkmann

     November 23, 2005, Atlanta -- Tom Bennett’s early journalism career focused on football – not a bad route to go in the South where sports trumps all.  But the Baptist minister’s son could not escape his true journalistic destiny – as a champion for open government.

     Bennett, the founding secretary-treasurer of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation and longtime Sunshine chair for Georgia’s Society of Professional Journalists, is retiring from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in January where he has worked since 1983.

      The veteran journalist and public records freedom fighter is responsible for much of the progress on open records and meetings in Georgia.  “Growing up in my family certainly gave me a sense of what is right and what is wrong,” Bennett says, noting that any journalist who encounters barriers to getting public documents or attending public meetings would fight for transparency. “It made sense to teach that there are laws in existence that prevent closed government.”

     Such education first made sense to Bennett when he worked as a reporter in Irvine, Calif. The Irvine Water District refused to open meetings or records, so Bennett wrote editorials for a year and a half to change the status quo. Eventually the California Supreme Court forced the board to open.  “I went to a meeting and the board called on the editor of my competing paper, who was also a local developer, to pray. And I thought, that is too cooperative with local government,” Bennett said.

     Bennett ranks Georgia near the top in the South for its progress on open government, but he believes the “hurricane of privacy legislation” has continued to threaten the efforts.

     Bennett is particularly proud of Georgia’s mediation program, modeled after a similar effort in Florida. Bennett persuaded state Attorney General Thurbert Baker in 1998 to institute a program that would fight for open records even before a situation ended up in court. Letters from the Attorney General’s office urging the opening of meetings or records has helped solve problems without a court battle.

     It was this program – thanks to strong letters from Baker himself – that successfully led to opening 550 boxes of documents related to Atlanta’s bid for the Summer Olympics in 1996. Documents related to the Augusta airport expansion project to a marshy area and meetings and records of University of Georgia’s Foundation were also opened are a result of the mediation program.  “This has enhanced the level of activism in enforcing Title 50 (state open records act) in our state,” Bennett said.

     Two recent open government successes make Bennett proud of Georgia’s commitment to transparency in government. The Gwinnett County Commission – despite a judge ruling the body did not have to vote on land acquisition in public – has chosen to do so anyway. And a Fulton County court ruled in favor of Thurbert Baker’s case against the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce requiring the group to open its records related to bids for the Superbowl and NASCAR Hall of Fame.

     Though Bennett has seen great progress in open government issues in the state, he is still concerned about the general apathy toward the issue. Every year, the state legislature introduces bills that threaten the openness of state government.

During his tenure, GFAF expanded and hired a full-time executive director, Hollie Manheimer. The Foundation has produced three booklets to aid in educating the state about the open records law – the Blue Book for law enforcement and the Green Book for education officials.

     Bennett published in Georgia FOI Access a listing of all public records exemptions that exist throughout the state code in addition to those found in Title 50. There are 155 exemptions in 48 other titles.  “The myth prevailed that exemptions are confined to the open records law,” Bennett said. “I was so proud of that…to end that period of denial.”

     Bennett and his wife Lorraine, senior copy editor for CNNInternational, will continue their community activism from their North Carolina farm in January. Bennett looks forward to monitoring Georgia’s continued progress in open government, but his immediate plans to keep busy involve building a fence for a few dogs and eventually a horse and getting involved with the Hiawassee River Watershed Coalition.  “There is so much left to accomplish,” he said, noting that when the largest county in the state can choose not to vote in executive session, there is hope.

     “When 149 other counties do that, the amount of information coming out of board meetings will be stupefying. Imagine the benefit that will have to our citizens.”

Milestones in Bennett’s Career:

Education

B.A. in government from Florida State University, 1965

Reporting

• Staff writer, prep sports editor, The Atlanta Journal, 1965-66

Covered integration of Georgia High School Association competition

• Assistant public relations director, Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Falcons, 1966-72

Wrote both press books

• Managing editor of creative services division of National Football League, 1972-77

Wrote Superbowl programs; Principal author of “The NFL’s Official Encyclopedic History of Football; Author of “The Pro Style: Understanding National Football League Strategy.”

• Sports editor, Coast Media Publishing Co., 1977-83

• Producer of AJC’s political debates on public television and WSB-TV, 1989-1993.

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1983 – present

Founding editor of Gwinnett Extra, zoned tabloid weekly, served as assistant metro editor and night editor; Co-logistics editor for sports newsroom during 1996 Summer Olympics; Awards coordinator for AJC news entries that have yielded 900 first places in 50 competitions annually, included Pulitzer Prizes in 1988, 1989, 1993 and 1995; Writer of 400 advance obits, including Big Jim Folsom, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, George Wallace, John Ehrlichmann, Strom Thurmond, Daddy King, Erskine Caldwell and James Venable.

FOI

• Founding secretary-treasurer of Georgia First Amendment Foundation

• Founding editor of Georgia FOI Access, GFAF newsletter

• Co-manager of 1999 Georgia Open Government survey

• Recipient of GFAF’s 2003  Hero of Open Government award

• Member of committee of journalists, lawyers and law enforcement officials to write “Georgia’s Law Enforcement and the Open Records Act – A law enforcement officer’s guide to open records in Georgia”

• General chairman of the 1999 Freedom of Information Coalition conference in Atlanta

• Chair of Weltner Freedom of Information banquet, 2001-2002 and 2004

• Sunshine Chair, Georgia Society of Professional Journalists, 1993-present

• Founding editor of atlantaspj.org

• Elmo Ellis Visiting Professor at University of Alabama, 2003-present