Public information officers play an important role in connecting the government with the media, and by extension, the public, so these workers must be held to the highest standards of responsibility and respect. That a San Diego school district public information officer recently made, and repeated, a joke about a reporter’s dead body is unacceptable.

Regardless of the context of the school spokesman’s comments, the San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists finds it irresponsible and reprehensible that a government employee who deals with the media on a regular basis would say if a reporter isn’t careful, her body might wash up on shore. Yet that’s what top Voice of San Diego editors Scott Lewis and Sara Libby say Andrew Sharp, the chief public information officer of the San Diego Unified School District, said to reporter Mario Koran about colleague Ashly McGlone.

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The state’s open records law is under threat by new legislation that would allow state government agencies to claim they have copyright ownership of “intellectual property developed by (government) employees or with state funding.” The San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists believes strongly that this bill amounts to a giant step backward in terms of free press and public access to the government’s business.

AB2880 would authorize the California Department of General Services to develop a database for “intellectual property” that should be “protected,” yet this work is done on behalf of the public, paid for by the public and used by the public. One recent example of how such legislative protection could be abused involves an attempt by the city of Inglewood to claim copyright protection over city-created video records of council meetings.

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The San Diego SPJ Chapter is proud to announce its 2016 Journalist of the Year: Mario Koran, a reporter at Voice of San Diego.

We chose to honor Koran both for breaking one of the biggest stories of the year that helped lead to a school board trustee’s resignation and for his comprehensive coverage of San Diego’s education that aims to fill readers’ needs.

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