During a panel discussion at this year’s Ohio Newspaper Association convention, Mike DeWine provided some guidance on how public record requests should be handled:  “Frankly, we find no way that it’s consistent with the spirit of the law of open records to make a distinction based on who is requesting, for whatever good or bad motives they might have . Everybody has to be treated the same.”

For once, Mr. DeWine is right: all requests for public records need to be handled the same whether they are coming from a political opponent, a reporter or some random guy on the street.

Sadly, some […]