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The first substantive change to the public records law is found in the exemption for confidential information. In addition to exempting attorney-client communications and tax information, the statute now has an exemption for billing information of public utilities: (c) Public Enterprise Billing Information. – Billing information compiled and maintained by a city or county or…

Under current law, there are at least two ways for the governing body of a North Carolina city to choose a new city manager: the Raleigh way, or the Durham way. The Raleigh way, which involves techniques apparently borrowed from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, might also be called the arrogant way,…

For the most part, the changes to the open meetings and public records laws are minor and won’t greatly impact how the average reporter does his work day-to-day. In particular, the open meetings law contains only two minor and one real, substantive change. The definition of “public body” has been altered slightly to make parallel…

We take for granted that if you didn’t lie, cheat or steal to get your information, you can publish it. I tell people on the Hotline that all the time. But prior restraints – court orders or laws telling people they cannot publish – have been at the heart of two very important, high profile…

“Uh, oh,” I thought. “He doesn’t get it.” I was standing in the rear of the Callaway Room at the Pinehurst Hotel watching U.S. Senator John Edwards’ facial expression. Senator Edwards had just concluded a set of well-rehearsed remarks about the need to protect “personal privacy,” and now my friend Jay Bender, the veteran counsel…

1. The requester has the right to specify the format in which he wants a public record produced, provided it exists in that format. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 132-6.2. 2. You may only be charged the actual cost for reproductions of public records. That cost may include such items as paper, a computer disk, or…

Governing magazine says state lawmakers are in a “privacy panic.” Professor Fred Cate says the free flow of information is threatened by a “privacy avalanche.” I don’t care what anyone else calls the faddish fetish for privacy now sweeping through the halls of state legislatures: I call it “Trouble.” (Note the capital “t”.) Professor Cate,…

I may appear before Judge Britt someday, so I will give a more restrained – if less interesting – account of the Fourth Circuit’s rulings in the Kirsten Mitchell/Cory Reiss cases than Paul O’Connor. Any of you who have read this column over the past two years knows the saga of Kirsten Mitchell. She is…

On Friday afternoon, October 29, 1999, Frieda Hudson, the publisher of The Pamlico News, called the NCPA Hotline for help. On the previous Wednesday, The News had published a story unflattering to the Commissioners of Hyde County. Sandy Semans, author of the story and managing editor of The News, was on her way to a…

On October 20, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued its long-awaited decision in Food Lion v. Capital Cities/ABC, et al. By a 2-1 vote the three-judge panel threw out a jury’s award of compensatory and punitive damages against ABC News, ruling that two ABC News producers who conducted a “hidden camera” investigation…