Be wary of the meat

When will the people learn not to keep information out of journalists' hands?

This past week, the Society for Professional Journalists signed a letter concerning the 2007 Farm Bill approved by the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee on Oct. 25. This bill's language, which was drawn up by Iowa's Tom Harkin, included a provision which would keep mum certain information that the Agriculture Committee possessed.

The bill in question was drawn up in response to the mad cow disease scare of 2003-2004. During the panic, the Agriculture Committe kept quiet about which stores carried the infected batch of beef, and the bill seeks to make secrecy a right of the group.

Worrisome? I'd say so. Such information is prime fodder for newspapers whose job it is to inform and protect the public from such covert operations. While the committee should have the right to obtain any information they please, they also have an obligation to the citizenry that elected them to keep them informed --especially when the information could save their life.

As I've been blogging, it worries me how often I see these stories of certain higher-up organizations trying to keep the public on the outs. In our society that prides itself on public knowledge and participation, it is a shame that we have to keep checking our leaders this way. The public may not always want to know the info, but more often than not, they need to.