Show of hands: What was the last government report you read that wasn’t The 9/11 Commission Report? Anyone check out the latest page-turner by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on payday lending? Let’s improve the odds a bit and include classics of the genre. After the market crashed in 2008 and all the talk was about how we needed a new Pecora Commission, how many of you actually went back and read their report about what led to the Great Depression? (Journalists and historians, I’m happy if you write in but just know your responses will be dismissed–I’m looking for lay people here.)

Obviously these reports have great import for the public since their recommendations often end up serving as templates for legislation that effects everybody. But not everybody reads these reports. And it’s this observation that led Jessica Francis Kane to write an essay titled “In Praise of Literary Reports” for the Millions.

In the essay, Kane notes the predictable lack of public interest in the release of a report by the commission President Obama charged with figuring out what went wrong in the BP oil spill:

When a tragedy on this scale strikes, a familiar pattern follows. A time of confusing and conflicting news stories is followed by a call for an independent investigation, followed by an inquiry, and then, many months later, a report. A great deal of hope—for explanation, reform, redemption—is placed in this inquiry and report-writing process.

But what exactly is the role of a government report? It attempts to be the truth, but is not always complete. It presents a story, but not always the one the most people believe. Most fail to reassure because the public considers them either politically motivated or the product of bureaucratic compromise.

In other words, these reports have no spine. Blame is so diffuse and delivered so diplomatically, it’s hard for the public to determine who really deserves to be raked over the coals.

For Kane, another reason the public doesn’t pay attention to these reports is due to a simple lack of narrative eloquence, which was one reason why–aside from the fact there was unprecedented public interest in the subject–that the 9/11 Report was so widely read. She uses the example of a WWII-era report from the UK as a way of illustrating how the public can become enthused by these reports:

The 9/11 Report’s emphasis on style was not completely without precedent, though the report it reminded me of is not well-known. When the UK investigated the largest civilian tragedy of WWII—a massive crush that occurred in an air raid shelter in East London in 1943—a lone magistrate was asked to investigate and in three weeks produced a report noted for its style and admired for its objectivity. The report stopped short of ascribing individual blame, yet like the 9/11 Report and now the report into the Gulf Oil spill, suggested the disaster could have and should have been avoided. The Bethnal Green report was suppressed until after the war, but when it was released, the writer was knighted and promoted to Chief Metropolitan magistrate.

So what would Kane have us do to inspire better report writing and to spur public interest? Although this is incredibly nerdy and I’m dubious as to whether it would increase popular readership by more than a single-digit percentage, I think that Kane’s solution is quite novel. She wants to offer a “best government report issued in the previous calendar year” prize. Kane reasons that, “If we gave an annual report prize, perhaps we would receive more artful reports, and they would, in turn, be read by more than a handful of journalists.” Hey, and maybe more of them would enter the popular consciousness to the point there’d be a glut of government-report inspired graphic novels.

Sounds good to me. So who’s going to organize this thing? Let the political wrangling begin!