First steps

It's been a positive weekend for the flow of information from disaster zones. First, the U.S. gave up on trying to defend limited reporter access in New Orleans. Now, China has declared that the death tolls from natural disasters will be made public rather than being classified as state secrets:

"Declassification of these figures and materials is conducive to boosting our disaster prevention and relief work," said Shen Yongshe, spokesman for the National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets...

China was widely accused of suppressing information about the 2003 SARS outbreak, confusing and delaying efforts to contain it before it spread to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and other countries and regions around the world.

In both cases, there's still an awfully long way to go toward breaking down a culture of secrecy. But at least the two decisions present some acknowledgement that the public interest is best served by getting the facts into the open. The next step in both cases is to try to make the same case as concerns government actions rather than natural disasters...though it's all too likely that both of the world's most powerful governments will fight that principle tooth and nail.