Hanna

In Kansas, where lawmakers are dealing with a huge budget mess, Associated
Press correspondent John Hanna stumbled upon a closed-door meeting of plottinglawmakers and decided to take a closer look.

According to National Journal’s Ron Fournier, a former AP correspondent
with Detroit roots, earlier this week Hanna passed a closed conference room en route to his
basement office in the Kansas Statehouse. Glancing through a
door window, Hanna saw Gov. Sam Brownback’s budget director addressing 27
Republican lawmakers.

Hanna was immediately suspicious because the GOP caucus was not
publicly scheduled, as would be the custom in Kansas, and a long-awaited debate
on the House floor had just been canceled.

Why are they meeting in secret? wondered Hanna, a seasoned
reporter. Hanna opened the door, walked in, and stood against a wall.
Fournier picks up the story from there: 

“This
is a private meeting,” one lawmaker barks. “You weren’t
invited.”
Hanna
crosses his arms. “I know that,” he says, nodding at the Brownback
aide, Shawn Sullivan, “but I’d like to hear what he has to say.”
After a few minutes of awkward silence, Budget Committee Chairman Marvin Kleeb
shrugs. “It’s OK,” he says. “He can stay.”

Brownback

Just
like that, a private meeting was made public. No lawyers. No protests. No big
scene. No indignant editorials or begging from the journalist community. Just
one reporter reminding the government who’s in charge of his beat: “I’d like to hear what he
has to say.”This
30-year veteran of state legislative coverage for the AP could be a model for
reporters in Washington, where “background”
briefings and email, “quote
approval,” and other erosions of journalist authority are too
often met with passive-aggressive acquiescence. Hanna flipped the script.