Last week, the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association’s Legislative Committee was in Madison, where they spoke with legislators about some topics of concern for both television and radio stations.
Yesterday we explained how artificial intelligence in political advertisements is an issue being addressed, but another important issue revolves around open records.
Seehafer Broadcasting Vice-President Terry Stevenson, who is a member of the legislative committee, explained to Seehafer News that the WBA is looking to regulate how long it should take someone to hand over said records.
Stevenson said that a bill has been crafted that states if “that entity that we are requesting the open records from takes their time and does not get it back to us in a timely manner that we then have to go to court, and we win, then all legal fees are covered by that entity.”
A separate bill is also in the process of being written that covers the fees for redacting information in an open records request.
“If you want to get copies of a record, obviously there is going to be expenses. No one is fighting that,” Stevenson explained. “The question comes down to ‘What is reasonable?’”
As of right now, there is no standard in place for what is considered a reasonable fee for an open records request, and Stevenson admits that this topic is a much more subjective one than the first.
“It’s a little hard because anytime you start talking about reasonable fees, in whose definition?” he explained. “What’s reasonable to you may be different to what it is to me.”
Stevenson said that the WBA and state legislators will continue to have the conversation and hopefully at some point, a determination will be made.
Tomorrow, we are going to look at a bill making its way through the Senate that aims to protect students studying journalism.
