Dave Rosenthal is Sunday Editor for The Sun in Baltimore.

AS THE NATION'S MEDIA DETAILED the personal and political scandal surrounding the September resignation of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, their reporting often overlooked a key factor in the drama: Michigan's Freedom of Information Act.

But the Detroit Free Press made sure to highlight how important the law was to its investigation, which helped topple the mayor.

Then Executive Editor Caesar Andrews says that's crucial for maintaining public support for such safeguards.

“Because of the aggressive use [of FOI laws] over the years, it often comes across as something designed for us, meaning journalists,” he says. “I do think we have to figure out as many ways as possible to say that these laws are for citizens.”

The Free Press used Michigan's law to aggressively pursue documents related to the city's $8.4 million settlement of a whistle-blower lawsuit by former policemen.

When those documents were made public — after months of legal battles that went all the way to the state's highest court — it was clear that Kilpatrick had lied under oath and had misled the City Council. And it was clear that the settlement was designed in part to cover up text messages detailing the mayor's affair with his chief of staff.

“Without the aggressive use of FOI tactics, we don't have the story,” Andrews says, while noting that confidential sources also were important to the investigation. Using sources, the Free Press obtained excerpts of text messages sent by the mayor and chief of staff on city-issued pagers, even before the settlement was made public.

The dramatic nature of the Kilpatrick story, including his guilty plea on obstruction of justice charges, in many ways overshadowed the FOI issues, Andrews says.

But the Free Press kept the issue in the spotlight.

In a 20-page special section published after the mayor pleaded guilty, a full page highlighted the role of the Free Press' FOIA request.

Headlined “Withhold nothing from the public,” the page included an excerpt from reporter Jim Schaefer's Oct. 19, 2007, FOIA letter requesting settlement agreements in the whistle-blower cases. The page also had a timeline of events in the FOIA battle and a step-by-step citizen's guide to using the state law. (Step 6: Always Appeal)

Andrews says such coverage will help maintain public support for FOI legislation.

Senior Managing Editor Jeff Taylor, who coordinated the newspaper's investigation, agrees. And he admits that his own thinking about publicizing FOI battles has shifted.

“I think the Kilpatrick story really raised the public's consciousness of that [FOI] issue,” he says. “We used to be a little shy about saying we had to pry these records from an agency.

“I've come around to thinking that when you've overcome significant obstacles, you ought to tell people how hard it was to get the information. ... Without these records, the story wouldn't be told.”

ASNE's largest and most visible effort to highlight the importance of FOI and other public access laws is the annual Sunshine Week program. Next year, the event will be held March 15-21.

Taylor wishes that Michigan's FOI law could be tightened to keep public agencies from charging high fees for a records search. Such fees may block access from citizens who don't have the deep pockets of a media organization, he says.

But overall, he's satisfied with provisions of the state law. He says it took months to break the story behind the settlement because city officials battled the newspaper's legitimate FOIA request at every turn.

“They fought us and fought us and fought us,” he says. “In general, the law is very good. The problem we had is that [city officials] didn't want to cough anything up.” *