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THE BATTALION
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1978
Page 3
Local journalists decry secrecy
Ptooeey!
There’s talent and THEN there’s talent. Scott spitting contest Saturday at the Corps Bash.
jPatton sends a stream of saliva flying in his Patton is Corps deputy commander.
Effort to top the best spitters in the tobacco-
Battalion photo by Paige Beasley
By SCOTT PENDLETON
Battalion Staff
Public officials should not “govern
in secrecy,” former Eagle editor
Paul LaRoeque said in an interview
Monday.
LaRoeque and Martin Sebastian,
former anchorman of KBTX-TV
(Channel 3), had criticized secrecy
in public affairs when they appeared
last week on KAMU-TV’s Focus
program.
LaRoeque said during the prog
ram that an incident arising from an
attempt to obtain information led to
his resignation in late May as the
Eagle’s editor. He is now the edito
rial page editor of the Fort Worth
Star-Telegram.
He would not comment earlier in
the summer on his resignation ex
cept to say it was “a disagreement
over policy.”
LaRoeque said that administra
tive officials of Texas A&M Univer
sity had refused to show an Eagle
reporter the 1978-79 University
budget proposal before the Board of
Regents had acted on it.
Administrative assistant Steve
Pringle said Monday that President
Miller considered the proposal to be
merely a recommendation for the
Board of Regents. Miller did not
think the proposal was public infor
mation until the regents had acted
on it, Pringle said.
LaRoeque disagreed.
“In this case, the University
budget is a public expenditure and
the public has a right to know what’s
in it before it is given final approval
by the Board of Regents,” LaRoe
que said Monday.
“The public should have informa
tion that is public. Public officials
are just that.
"They should serve the public
whether they are university officials
or community officials. They should
remember this and not try to govern
in secrecy,” LaRoeque said.
He said he wanted to attempt to
obtain the information under the
Texas Open Records Act by getting
an attorney general’s opinion.
But LaRoeque said that Texas
A&M President Jarvis Miller talked
with W.S. Pearson, the Eagle’s pub
lisher, about the University’s
reasons for withholding the prop
osal.
Pearson then told LaRoeque to
drop the matter, LaRoeque said.
LaRoeque then resigned, he said,
because he felt he could not con
tinue to work for The Eagle if it
would mean making exceptions to
his news policy.
In other cases, LaRoeque said,
The Eagle had followed the course
that seemed right under the law.
LaRoeque did not believe that The
Eagle should have backed off in this
case either, he said.
LaRoeque said that the case was
the culmination of a series of disag
reements between him and Pearson
about policy matters dealing with
decisions like special sections and
news coverage.
Pearson said Monday he couldn’t
remember his exact conversation
with Miller and would not comment
on LaRocque’s statements, except
to say that the matter was “in-house
business.”
During the KAMU interview,
Martin Sebastian supported LaRoc
que’s contention that public officials
should make public business availa
ble to the media.
“They’re carrying on as a public-
entity and they should provide us
with all the information we desire,”
he said.
Sebastian, who will be working
for a television station in Des
Moines, said that some public offi
cials exclude the press from what
should be public meetings and don’t
release documents that are public-
record.
Referring to the press as “the
public’s watchdog,” Sebastian said
that “if we are excluded, then they
(the public) are excluded.”
During the KAMU interview,
Sebastian also commented on the
media’s responsiblity to report all
the news. For instance, TV 7 stations
hate to use stories with no visual
impact, he said. Yet they must do so
since some people rely entirely on
TV for news. The station must even
carry stories it missed the day be
fore, Sebastian said.
He and LaRoeque agreed that
competition among the media to get
a story first improves the quality of
news gathering and reporting.
Both men identified areas where
the local news media could do bet
ter work. LaRoeque mentioned the
need for more explanation of the
news. He recommended more arti
cles in a series and more investiga
tions.
Sebastian said that media audi
ences like “self-help” news that in
forms them on topics of personal in
terest. But he pointed out the diffi
culty of reporting “what they want
and what they need” in a brief TV
newscast.
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Aggie Tidbits
he 55 Aggies who were killed in
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