As another Sunshine Week arrives, it’s a timely opportunity to urge the state legislature to follow the lead of many county and municipal governments in providing video coverage of its proceedings.
It’s not that complicated. The city of Salisbury provides video streaming of its meetings, as well as those of the city planning board. The Rowan County commission also videotapes its meetings and makes them available online. Yet state government is still stuck in the radio age.
The state provides audio coverage of N.C. House and Senate floor sessions, along with proceedings in two committee rooms. There’s also live audio streaming of committee meetings through VoterRadio.com, which is operated by the N.C. Center for Voter Education (and thanks for providing expanded transparency for the ears, if not the eyes).
In the age of C-Span and Skype, providing only audio transmissions of legislative proceedings is the technological equivalent of driving a car with an eight-track tape deck and crank-operated windows. Audio provides some information, but it isn’t the whole picture.
Video streaming expands public access to local government, and that’s true on a much larger scale at the state level. Motivated citizens typically can find time to attend local government meetings. But for many, traveling to Raleigh to follow debates firsthand on a particular issue requires a significant investment of time and travel expense, requiring them to skip work, secure child care and make other arrangements. That’s putting the onus of transparency on citizens, when technology is readily available to provide much greater access to legislative proceedings via public access broadcasts, online streaming or both.
North Carolina is among a minority of states that don’t offer some form of televised coverage of legislative proceedings. Transparency isn’t simply about making meetings and government information public. It also should be about proactively expanding citizen access to the day-to-day workings of government. Ultimately, citizens are the best government watchdogs. North Carolina legislators should give more of them a way to watch.