Mr. Nickens Visit

I can honestly say that I have learned something new and very useful every day I have come to public affairs reporting, and I really learned a lot from Mr. Nickens from the St. Pete Times.

One of the most shocking tings that I learned from Mr. Nickens was that the main reason autopsy photos are no longer public records are due to the Earnhardt family and the death of Dale Earnhardt. That is just mind-blowing to me. If this one family with a lot of money, can change a law like this just because they didn't believe in it, then what is stopping other rich families from doing the same thing? Why can't the Hogan's ban jail conversations they had with their son from public records? I'm sure if they were willing to spend a little bit more money, they could have easily done that!

Another surprising fact I learned was how much it actually cost to obtain some public records. Before entering this class, I thought it was just going to be looking up records on the Internet or going places to search for things on my own. I guess that I never thought that someone would have to do the work for me, and then I would have to turn around and compensate them on the time he or she had lost.

Mr. Nickens also talked about the incentives and tax breaks that are given to some businesses are not public records. Which makes me wonder what Hillsborough County, Pinellas County, Pasco County and others would do to bring a certain store to their area? It seems to me that these counties must go to great length to bring these stores, and it would probably make the average tax payer angry to find out what is going on behind this closed curtain.

All in all, I would say that I very much enjoyed Mr. Nickens visit. He offered a great deal of new information to the class that I am sure we can all use for the future. He taught us a lot about certain public records, and what we need to do to obtain them, and I was extremely happy with his presentation. It would be of great interest for him to come back and speak with future classes.