Tribune editorial staff

We always suspected the public was kept from seeing many items that are, by law, considered public. Now we have proof.

An extensive survey by the Ohio Coalition for Open Government and The Associated Press proves what we long suspected. More than 90 people fanned out across the state to assess the true meaning of "public" in each of the 88 counties in Ohio.

The auditors in the survey sought six pieces of information, each deemed public by a team of three media attorneys.

The results were staggering, at best. Of the nearly 500 requests counted in the study, only 50 percent were granted.

In our book, that earns the state a huge 'F' for its failure to uphold the law.

Public records laws are on the books to give citizens the right to scrutinize government's work. It's a critical part of what makes our democracy the envy of many nations - our ability to question, without fear of repercussion, our government.

Given the high failure rate, we suspect many, many government workers are either ignorant of the law or do not care whether or not the public's rights are protected.

It's one of the reason we publish many public records items - arrests, marriages, divorces, land transfers, etc. Doing so helps preserve, at least a bit, of that understanding that all of that information is accessible to each and every one of us, regardless of any other factors.

Public records access doesn't mean, it's public when it's nothing that will hurt anyone's feelings or it's public when the workers have time to get the information or anything else. The label public is all encompassing and immediate.

All elected officials, from townships all the way to the governor should take the results of the survey to heart. The people of Ohio are being cheated.

This isn't a game of horseshoes, in which being "close" to the mark earns some points. It's all or nothing. And as the study showed, Ohioans received only 50 percent of what they should have.