Open Records

For Ashleigh and I’s part in the team story, most of our information is already available to us. We are most concerned with the changes in GHSA policy regarding transfer, which we have been able to track from year to year. I’m not sure if these even qualify as open records, but if there were any kind of meeting notes that discussed the thought process behind the changes, that would be of great use to us. It is definitely apparent that the committee shifted focus from year to year, making large amounts of changes to one specific topic. Additionally, this would probably be of use to the entire team, but just knowing the amount of transfers within GHSA over the last few years and what their cites causes were would also give me a better idea of what the actual trend is and how GHSA is managing it as they continue to update policy. As far as retrieving them, it would likely be easiest to go through an administrator or secretary at the GHSA office.

For my personal story, I would need to see a budget breakdown of a NCAA team’s expenses. USA Triathlon has given grants to NCAA teams so I would like to know how they are spending their money, whether it be on equipment, coaches salary, travel, etc. I would go through a point person at the university for that request. Since USA Triathlon is a private company, I unfortunately cannot dig into their records, although they have the most valuable information to me, like how spending on elites has changed over the last few years, changes in USAT personnel because of NCAA or success in the sport, along with the amount of athletes competing in general.

Open records and our group project

Group:

Alex and I are working on the academic implications of transferring for high school football. While working through the GHSA rule book on transferring, I think an interesting part to look through would be how public schools allocate the funding to the athletic department of the school. I think another interesting thing to look into is the development of these booster clubs and how much they give to the athletic department. I know at my own high school, the scoreboard was funded by a single family in the community and it was a heft project, therefore public funding could go to other entities in the football program.

In terms of the project a more focused open record to request would be:

The official transfer forms and transcripts of athletes that have transferred.
Transcripts of students that go from private to public and vice versa.
- Some academic requirements have interesting transfer credits such as Military Science as a course at Riverside Military academy.

Individual:

Allocations of how schools are funding girl’s programs compared to boys
Allocations of how schools are funding girl’s basketball, soccer and track and field as the largest sports in the GHSA.

Potential Records

Personal story

none

All of the hard data (career games played, PER, college statistics, past NBA draft results) I need for my story is publicly available, via NBA.com/stats and basketball-reference.com. The pool of players I’m looking at is pretty big: players drafted from 2003 – 2011 (they have >5 years worth of NBA Data to look at; avg. NBA career is 4.8 years).

Team story:

current team rosters (e.g , Grayson)
Transfer migration patterns in GA high schools

High school records can be hard to track, but we’ve already started compiling a list of local HS football transfer transfers to contact. We may need to file open records request to know the amount of transfers (within GHSA) over the last few years; some patterns may emerge once we parse the data (like if there’s an area or school most transfers are leaving)

Open Records Law Change in GA

explaining the new law and whether you believe it’s fair to journalists, other records requesters, and the public’s interest by Sept. 28.

I think it’s really interesting that there is a model request form, which I didn’t know about. I also didn’t know that you could have to pay to receive the open records (it makes sense why you would have to – I just never thought about that) and that some of them could cost up to $500.. what would be an example of an open records retrieval that costs $500?

I personally don’t understand why they changed the law…They changed it from 3 days to 90. Ninety days to ONLY respond to the requester, the requester could still then wait even longer to receive the open records. I think it should have stayed at three days or they could have made it three to 5 business days to respond back to the requester. Ninety days is entirely too long and I think it’s unfair to journalists and everyone else who uses open records because if you’re trying to right a story or whatever you’re doing with the open records, and you need information that can only be obtained through open records, you’re going to have to wait a long time to even hear back.

I think changing the law was fine, but I’m not sure why they decided on 90 days. I personally think three days to a week is enough time to decide if you’re going to accept or deny the request.

Reading the article about Fetty Wap’s performance here at UGA is very interesting to me, as I attended that concert. I personally think performer’s riders are insane. I would love to know how much of that food actually got eaten (I know there are a lot of crew members and what not that need to be fed).

Open Record Act

The recent controversy about Georgia’s Open Records Act spurs a lot of conversation about what the act truly is protecting. That is my main concern about the new act is that I feel there isn’t circumstantial evidence to what this benefits or how it helps to keep things safer. I understand that 3 days in the prior ruling may be stressful on a state entity if there is a flood of requests and the association wants to make sure that the request is dealt with in a thorough manner. However, ninety days in the life of a reporter and a 24-hour news cycle is difficult to navigate. I have notice subtle frustration and blatant frustration with getting information for articles. Most recently, I saw an article about the 2020 Chick-fil-a Bowl and whether or not Georgia will be participating. The journalist was able to get the information from Virginia, but not Georgia.

“This document was obtained by The Telegraph in a Freedom of Information Act request in the state of Virginia. The Telegraph also requested the contract through Georgia’s Open Records Act, although the university has 90 days to return any documents related to athletics.”

I don’t see how a simple piece of information like this needs to be held onto.

Open Records Act

I believe the new law is very fair to journalists, records requestors and the public’s interest because it’s making everything transparent and honest. I think the Fetty Wap and Ludacris situations brought much light to the concerns of Georgia’s Open Records Act. Now the University, at least in my opinion, looks crooked and sloppy. They allowed a celebrity to push them around and then not even delivered what was promised. Now the public can be more aware of what takes place behind the scenes and find out information that has been looked over or forgotten. Administrations such as UGA Athletics may not think they act is fair because they are now being exposed. But this will make them think twice before they allow a 2^nd rate celebrity take advantage of them and take their money.

Open Records

The new open records law just speaks to the general paranoia in the SEC. The problem is, this is bigger than just football. It’s a detriment to the student and professional journalist who want to serve the public.

If an athletic program can push to delay it’s response time to records request, why wouldn’t other state agencies follow suit? The lawmakers wrote the new open record pretty broadly. the new law puts a delay on releasing new contract terms, any NCAA complaint letters, or if there are any new projects that come from taxpayer money.

Changing operating procedures won’t even give Smart an advantage on the field or in recruiting. The football department has access to doghouses full of money, near-professional facilities, and is in arguably the best state for high school football talent. Restricting access to public documents won’t help UGA win a national title. It won’t keep its wide receivers from dropping passes. But it does hurt taxpayers in Georgia, fans and anybody who cares about UGA — and any other athletic department in the state.

Open Records

Having been on the Georgia beat when this law first came into being and being at the press conferences and athletic facility when it was being discussed, this topic hits close to home.

My feelings on it really haven’t changed — that it is a way to directly impede the flow of information and shield from transparency. The claim specifically for Georgia is that this will help the team become more successful, but to me that is a fallacy. The policy worked just fine under Mark Richt, and no one really complained. The Fetty Wap incident certainly tipped the scales and shifted any thought at all if there it existed to go back to the old law.

What really matters is what this will mean for the near and forseeable future, and that is a scale that is tipped in the balance of athletic programs who will have an almost autonomy to act without accountability. Ninety days is a long time for information to be processed, and more importantly, for any potential damage control to be prepared for. To me, at a baseline level this is a “Too bad you can’t have it.” That is childish and petty, and it’s a shame that it has come to this, that programs feel as though they need a giant shield to protect their sanctity.

Georgia curbs journalists’ access to information with new law

The issues regarding the changes to the state of Georgia’s Freedom of Information Act — nicknamed Kirby’s Law — were at the forefront of the football discussion for most of the spring for me. I wrote about this issue in a column for The Red & Black in the spring, and it continues to be a notable problem for writers seeking information.

The biggest issue I have with the law change is the time increase. If the adaptation had been from a response having to be made in three days to one in, say, one or two weeks, I would have been OK with that. There’s no denying that requests take time to fulfill, and when you throw several different writers into the mix, it’s definitely isn’t an easy task to take care of. However, the jump from three days to 90 days remains nothing but absurd.

What also bothers me is the ridiculous arguments that some tried to make defending the change. Many people said that the driving force in the change was that the athletic department receives so many requests concerning recruiting, but that cannot possibly be true. Writers at publications such Rivals or 247Sports don’t go through the athletic department to find out recruiting news; they go straight to the source, i.e. the high school player involved or his head coach. That’s not to say there are no recruiting requests made, because I know at one point The Athens Banner-Herald’s Marc Weiszer sent in requests regarding graduate transfer quarterbacks. That being said, there are so many other areas that could have held up a better argument in this case than recruiting.

But it wasn’t like everything was perfect with FOIA requests before. As Matt Brown outlined in this post on SB Nation, there were times where the charges for certain documents were outlandishly high. The state legislature just took a process that often rendered peculiar requirements from the requestee and turned it into a process that’s practically not worth the investment due to the time involved.

I watched the FOIA law change’s implications play out recently. My boss, Jason Butt, broke a story regarding Virginia and Georgia facing off in the Chick-fil-A Bowl in 2020. Butt made a FOIA request to Georgia about the contract, but knowing the information would not be available for 90 days, promptly did the same thing in Virginia for the Cavaliers’ side of the contract. As a result, he got the information in a matter of days and was able to break the story.

The inclusion of the Fetty Wap rider is an important example for us to consider. Since the concert occurred before the new law kicked in, The Red & Black was able to get the contract and flesh out the details. This is important considering the circumstances of the concert, in that Fetty Wap was late and performed well short of the requirements of the contract. Considering the funds for Fetty come from the students, they deserve to know how much money was dedicated for that show and whether he had fulfilled his required duties. Without this access, no one would have been aware that he in fact did not follow through with what the contract stipulated from him.

Georgia Open Records Laws

Working for an attorney, I send and facilitate open records requests at least once a week. The phrase “Pursuant to the Georgia Open Records Act…” is practically etched in my brain.

Usually, these companies and medical providers are fairly cooperative with these requests and produce the requested documents in a reasonable time. We also ask in our request that the documents be produced within 60 days of receiving the letter and make it clear that we are willing to pay any reasonable copy and transfer costs.

That being said, releasing an individual’s medical records to an attorney for a civil suit is completely different than a collegiate athletic department releasing it’s annual budget to a reporter. I think the new laws are extremely damaging to the public, because we generally have a short attention span. If a reporter cannot get the requested documents for three months, public outcry and/or interest in an important story may be chilled. I’m disappointed in these laws. I think they give institutions far too much time to clean up their acts and be deceptive with finances and other information.

From my experience, the best way to tackle these new laws would be to remain persistent. Continually send follow up requests within the three month period to ensure the school understands that the story is not going away. Unfortunately, being a pest is often the best way to get information in these situations.