Membership Has Privileges  We're in the club, you're not.
Pfffftt!  Membership has privileges: Lucky you. Once again you
get to bask in the gloriousness that is Buzz. Please, don't
bother to genuflect. Oh, OK, genuflect. But just a bit.  Oops,
sorry. We were feeling all Olympian for a moment. Don't blame
us, though; blame the Texas Legislature, which has decided to
declare that Buzz—or rather the Dallas Observer—is a privileged
member of a cool media club, unlike bothersome bloggers and you
run-of-the-mill citizens.  How'd they do that? By passing HB
2564, a measure that requires you plebeians to cough up cash if
you ask a government agency to see public records too often.
Under the bill, if your pesky open records requests require an
agency to spend more than 36 hoursof staff time providing
records in a fiscal year, the agency can bill you for the extra
hours. (This is in addition to the usual copying fees.)
Educators, elected officials and reporters for daily or weekly
publications and licensed broadcasters