September 14, 2001

First Person: Sherry Lee Alexander

As part of a new feature, Loyola today will bring to you occasional articles written by faculty, staff, and students which give a first-person account of activities, programs, ideals of which they would like to share knowledge or opinion. We asked Sherry Lee Alexander, a tenured member of the faculty in the communications department, to tell us the story behind the grant she received from Knight/Ridder, administered by the National Freedom of Information Coalition.

"It all began at a small, 5000-watt station" pompous TV anchorman Ted Baxter would begin on the old "Mary Tyler Moore show." For me, it was my hometown public TV affiliate as a reporter, with the opportunity to interview everyone from Hollywood celebrities to presidents. I was allowed to write stories for a weekly provided I use a pen name, and since because of my ebullience, people called me "Sherry Sunshine," so that was the obvious choice. Now, with the recent announcement of my receipt of a $10,000 Knight/Ridder grant to encourage understanding of public access "sunshine laws" in Louisiana, I've come full circle.

Ten years and two states after that first job, I was honored to be selected the first Freedom of Information Fellow at the University of Florida as I worked on a Ph.D. in communication law. At UF, we dealt with problems faced by people denied access to public records or banished from public meetings, seemingly at the whim of officials who needed some attitude adjustment regarding the most liberal access laws in the countryonly fitting for the "Sunshine State."

My specialty is press coverage of the judicial system, an area of government with numerous access issues: pretrial publicity, gag laws, access to records, anonymous jurors, and courtroom closures. The 1990 dissertation examined the effectiveness of courtroom camera guidelines in balancing fair trial/free press interests and showed that, contrary to popular belief, journalists did not interfere with the judicial process. Due to lucky timingincluding the advent of Court TVmy allotted five minutes has stretched out from my move to Loyola in 1991 to the present. I've dined out on courtroom coverage figuratively and literally, and the subject has been a major focus of my academic research, professional work, and public service.

Research has shown that many journalists are ignorant of the responsibilities concomitant with the rights of courtroom coverage, as became evident during the criminal trial of OJ Simpson (All OJ, All The Time!). Thus, Covering the Courts: A Handbook for Journalists was written in 1999. All profits have been donated to UF's FoI Center, with the hope that the handbook will not only serve as a journalism text but will also be sent out to newsrooms everywhere.

After spending a year covering Edwin Edwards' criminal trials in Baton Rouge in 2000, I realized that such Kafkaesque techniques as sealed records, anonymous juries, and gag laws were still issues in the new millennium, even when the cases involved the corruption of public officials doing the public's business The Louisiana Way. Thus, in March I applied for the grant, and the new Louisiana Coalition for Open Government held its organizational meeting on campus on Flag Day. Prominent representatives of nearly two dozen citizen and press groups have agreed to serve on the board, led by chair Linda Lightfoot, executive editor of The (Baton Rouge) Advocate. Although we will not be chartered until the end of the year, we've already had offers of support as well as requests for help from citizens denied access. Our first projects will be a citizens' hotline and also a sunshine-law education campaign, with a newsletter edited by the LaCOG Project Director, our old friend Sherry Sunshine.

Grantors Knight/Ridder Foundation and the National FoI Coalition have made an honest woman of me at last.