The Augusta Press has won the most prestigious award given by the Georgia Press Association – the Freedom of Information Award.
The award is given annually to the Georgia newspaper that has done the most in the previous year to uphold the principles of the First Amendment and to protect the public’s right to know through the use of the state’s open records and open meetings laws.
Georgia Press Association President Mike Gebhart of Southeastern Community Newspapers, Inc., of Lawrenceville, Ga., presented the award at the association’s convention banquet on June 3.
“The Augusta Press has tirelessly pursued open records,” Gebhart said. “It’s truly heartening to see such commitment to the First Amendment by a start-up.”
The award was given for the paper’s work in its first year of publication to bring greater openness to the Augusta Mayor’s Office, the Augusta Fire Chief search, the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office and the Augusta University cheating scandal that involves Dip Metress. The paper’s efforts included filing lawsuits to obtain records from the fire chief search and the Sheriff’s office, dozens of open records requests filed with each of those offices and letters from First Amendment attorney David Hudson.
“I believe government should be open and above board with voters,” said Publisher Joe Edge. “I believe a newspaper has the responsibility to do what the public can’t always do for itself – hold government officials and offices accountable for their public spending and their public actions. Those are two principles I’ll never back down from.”
The Augusta Press is continuing its efforts on behalf of the public to obtain greater openness in local government. It currently has lawsuits pending against Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis Jr. and the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office.
Planning, developing, writing and editing the stories in these series involved the entire Augusta staff, according to Edge.
“These were absolutely a staff effort,” Edge said. “Stories like the ones we wrote about the sheriff’s office or the mayor’s spending, they have one byline, and that doesn’t reflect all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into this kind of reporting. Anna (Virella) handled most of the open records requests. Scott (Hudson), Sylvia (Cooper) and I poured through the documents to see what we had. Debbie and Charmain (Brackett) did the editing and honing. And Tyler, of course, wrote the AU stories.”
He added that the paper would not have been as successful at obtaining government records without its attorney, David Hudson.
“I’m pretty sure David Hudson thought we must have him on speed dial some days,” Edge said. “His wise counsel and legal acumen were invaluable to us as we navigated through these stories.”
Hudson, author of the Augusta government stories, had this to say about work on the stories:
“I am so proud of our team, especially our researchers like Anna Virella who leave no stone unturned in our quest to uncover the truth.”
Virella is a second-generation newspaper journalist who is in her first journalism job.
“I grew up watching my dad fight for truth and transparency in his career in journalism, so when I was presented with the opportunity to follow in his footsteps with my own career, I jumped in head first,” Virella said.
Virella said she believes that a well-informed community is “an empowered community,” and she added she was honored to be part of a team that works so hard to support the public’s right to know.
The narrative submitted to the Georgia Press Association summarized The Augusta Press’s efforts as “not easy for a start-up newspaper. We’ve spent thousands of dollars to obtain records via the open records act and to pursue litigation when necessary. We’re sure we haven’t endeared ourselves to public officials in Augusta, but we’ve done what is necessary – and what we pledged to do when we started publishing – to defend the public’s right to know.
“We understand that may sound somewhat anachronistic. Many media today give a nod to that press responsibility but don’t really follow through because audiences and advertisers have fallen off so much. We believe to do otherwise, though, is to renege on our responsibilities to our readers, and ultimately to our governing officials as well. The press is the fourth estate of government. A watchdog. We take that role seriously at The Augusta Press.”
