If first impressions prove to be correct, members of the legislative task force being asked to reconcile serious privacy and right to know differences raised by the Newtown tragedy seem to appreciate the need to listen to each other and be sensitive to the legitimacy of the other side's point of view.

We say "most" because not all 17 members attended the first session last week and one of the dozen who did loudly proclaimed the rightness of her views before hearing any testimony to the contrary. We'll get to her after we hear from those who indicated the task force may provide us with some thoughtful debate on this highly debatable issue. They spoke with reporters following the meeting, which was mostly procedural. The next meeting is at the end of the month.

Even Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane acknowledged the conflict was between two fundamental rights that the legislature needs to balance and he was behind the controversial law permanently banning photographs and withholding the 911 tapes made during the December school shootings for a year.

But he left no doubt that as the state's top prosecutor, he still endorses banning the 911 calls that are commonly released in Connecticut and in most states. He said the 911 calls were "the dying words of people, whether they're victims of crime or firefighters in a building where the roof collapses," an indication that the task force's deliberations will not be without emotional debate. (It should be noted that the 911 tapes made during the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center were released.)

Jodie Modzder Gil, the president of the state's chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, also called for sensitivity to the privacy concerns raised by the killings of 20 children and six adults, but defended the public release of photographs. She repeated the hard-to-refute assertion that photographs and recordings could help assess the response and conduct of police and other government agencies.

"We need this information in order to function as a democracy," she said. "If we're allowing the government to decide that something should not be public, how do we know that they're doing the right thing?"

Ms. Modzder Gil also said she couldn't imagine a news organization using such photographs but even those who may agree with this position have expressed their fear that less responsible, amateur journalists using the internet may not show the same restraint.

The exception to the opening day willingness to listen was state Rep. DebraLee Hovey, whose district includes part of Newtown. She has supported banning not only photographs and recordings, but even the routine release of death certificates and shows no inclination to consider other positions.

"I don't view them as having any purpose for the public whatsoever," said Ms. Hovey. "There's no lesson to be learned from these."

Rep. Hovey has been a strong critic of news coverage of the tragedy, which she has characterized as "over the top." This is largely due, we suspect, to the coverage of her own "over the top" conduct when she savagely attacked a visit to Newtown by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who nearly lost her life in an assault by a lone gunman at a mall in Arizona.

"Gabby Giffords stay out of my towns," she ranted in a Facebook entry, calling the visit by the severely wounded and still recovering Giffords politically inspired. Ms. Hovey later apologized, rather lamely explaining she was only trying to protect the privacy of the Newtown families, who welcomed Ms. Giffords.

This newspaper, along with most other news organizations, has long championed government transparency and the people's right to know. But we have also supported privacy rights and, in that spirit, we await the development of arguments serving both positions and perhaps even reconciling some of them. We suggest to Rep. Hovey that she might benefit from joining us.