A business, busy minding your business

Today's paper includes a story about an Austin judge's Thursday ruling that The Beaumont Enterprise can continue to be part of a lawsuit the City of Beaumont filed against the Texas Attorney General. The city is seeking to overturn an attorney general opinion saying the Beaumont Police Department has to give The Enterprise its use-of-force reports.

The city doesn't want to do that, citing those reports as part of personnel records and therefore protected from the usual Freedom of Information rulings.

So, why does The Enterprise care? Why does a business want to get into the city's business?

Because that's part of our job. A good newspaper helps serve as a community watchdog. Some people object to that role and object to that word -- but it's who we are and what we do.

It's our job to keep an eye on the public interest -- to investigate things that might need investigating, and to report on things that might, or might not, be askew.

We're not trying to stir up trouble. We're trying to see if there's some trouble that's already happened that we need to bring to light.

Thursday's court ruling simply upheld existing laws, validating the fact that we are not only upholding our rights, but doing our best to fulfill our obligations as journalists.

This business is everybody's business.