ABSTRACT
The right of access to public record information can be found explicitly in statements of the country’s founders, as well as in state and federal statutes, and implicitly in the decisions of the Supreme Court. However, a trend toward privacy protection manifested, for example, in the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act poses a serious threat to First Amendment interests and threatens to substantially harm American journalists. This study systematically investigates journalists’ use of public record databases. The study is set up with a traditional legal literature review looking at the rights of access historically and currently. Then to ascertain the possible effect of current access laws, the study combines in-depth interviews and survey research to offer a more complete view of how these databases are being used in TV or newspaper stories and what is at stake if access to public record databases is eliminated.
