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Larry Fugate, FOIArkansas Project

JONESBORO — The editor of the state’s largest independent, family-owned daily newspaper takes his role as an advocate of open government seriously.

“The public’s business should be done in public,” is the often-repeated p

Courtesy of The Jonesboro Sun John Troutt Jr., who as editor still works the news desk at The Jonesboro Sun, has filed numerous FOIA lawsuits.

hilosophy of John Troutt Jr., editor of The Jonesboro Sun.

Troutt knows from experience it can be expensive to challenge city hall and the courthouse, but he says matter-of-factly that it’s part of the cost of doing business.

The masthead on the editorial page of the 31,000-circulation newspaper lists Troutt as “editor” rather than “publisher” or “editor and publisher,” titles typically reserved for a newspaper’s primary owner or top executive.

“That’s what I do,” he says. “We are in the news business. We put out newspapers. Publishers are bean counters.”

Troutt, 70, continues to work the “slot” at The Sun two nights a week; that means he’s the editor on the firing line, making the final decision on which stories make page one of the paper for that day. His are the final set of eyes on all breaking news.

Troutt has filed more than half a dozen Freedom of Information Act lawsuits and has gone all the way to the Arkansas Supreme Court more than once.

“Lots of publishers are willing to howl about FOI violations, but not enough are willing to carry through,” he said in an interview. “You’ve got to carry it out.”

Troutt took on the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools in the late 1970s in a landmark Arkansas FOIA suit, challenging a reporter’s exclusion from a meeting between the Jonesboro School Board and members of the association’s state committee.

The state committee, following an investigation, met with the school board regarding the possible loss of accreditation of Jonesboro High School. Reporter Mike Overall, now one of the newspaper’s two associate editors, was excluded from the meeting.

The association argued before the state Supreme Court that the Freedom of Information Act did not apply because the association is a private, nonprofit corporation, not authorized or created by state statute, and with no official status in Arkansas.

Justices noted the FOIA requires that “all meetings, both formal and informal, special or regular, of the governing bodies of all municipalities, counties, townships and school districts, and all boards of the state ... except grand juries, supported wholly or in part by public funds, or expending public funds, shall be public meetings.”

Dues paid by the member schools support the association’s functions, the court noted, and the bulk of that money comes from public sources. The court ruled the FOIA did apply to the association, and said if the General Assembly had intended otherwise, “it could easily have made an exception.”

That decision, Troutt said, “was one of the most important ones we got.” The ruling stated in very simple terms that the FOIA applied “as long as they spend public funds.”

Troutt said he has not been surprised that the FOIA has been attacked from a number of quarters since it was adopted in 1967.

He cited the North Central suit, the landmark 1968 Laman vs. McCord decision, and a 1976 case stemming from an El Dorado City Council meeting as the three most important court decisions on the Arkansas FOI Act. All three helped define when meetings must be open.

In Laman vs. McCord, the first test of the law, the Supreme Court set the standard for liberal interpretation of its provisions, disallowing private meetings between the North Little Rock City Council and the city attorney.

The El Dorado case established that a meeting of any number of the members of a city council, even if less than a quorum, is subject to the FOIA if members discuss or take action on any matter that may come before the council later.

Sometimes it’s necessary to go to court to make sure officials follow not only the letter of the law, but also the spirit of the law, according to Troutt.

Troutt filed an FOIA suit in Craighead County Circuit Court in 1981 challenging the method used to fill an unexpired seat on the Jonesboro City Council. He noted in an editorial at the time that the newspaper did not question the appointment of businessman Aden Johnson III to the council, but the method by which Johnson was selected.

Aldermen and the mayor met in executive session to fill the unexpired term and a Sun reporter was denied admission to the meeting.

After completing the executive session, the council met publicly and voted without discussion to appoint Johnson to the post.

“We were not talking about the appointment of a police chief,” Troutt said. “The people have a vote on an elected office, even when they are being appointed. The public doesn’t have a vote on the police chief.”

A lower court ruled that the executive session was illegal because an attorney met with the council, a violation of the FOIA. The ruling did not address the merits of the case.

Another situation that prompted a lawsuit occurred in December 1991 when then-Craighead County Chief Deputy Sheriff T.R. “Dickie” Howell refused to allow a Sun reporter to examine jail logs in the juvenile detention center.

One reason Howell cited for refusing the reporter’s request was that a federal regulation, rather than the state FOIA, applied because some federal money had been used to build the county jail.

The state Supreme Court noted in its ruling in favor of the Sun “that a federal law, which does not prohibit disclosure, but only provides for the loss of funds if the information is disclosed, does not supersede the (state) FOIA.”

The newspaper sought the information in connection with the escape of three juveniles who had attacked a matron to get the keys to the jail. They also stole the matron’s personal keys and her car.

Just prior to the incident, the state Supreme Court had ruled in a Pine Bluff case that jail logs were public records, open for inspection 24 hours a day; but the deputy believed the federal law on juvenile identities took precedence.

The Supreme Court ordered release of the juvenile jail logs.

Troutt noted the General Assembly provided an FOIA exemption for records of the detention of juveniles “after we won.”

Troutt said he doesn’t consider exemptions to the FOIA as troublesome. However, he would like to see more citizens utilizing the act.

“I don’t see the FOI as a media thing,” he said, explaining one of the reasons his newspaper so often defends the law. Unless the public “is aroused,” he said, “they are unlikely to protect their rights.”

Troutt says he hopes he never has to file another FOIA challenge in the courts, but adds quickly that he will, tomorrow, if the need arises.