Journalists campaign for Freedom of Information
Posted by
Martin Stabe
on 13 March 2006 at 12:56
Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism, United States
Journalists in the United States are currently observing “Sunshine Week“, with news organisations across the country campaigning to raise awareness of their local Freedom of Infomation and open government laws.
The annual initiative, named for the Sunshine Act (Florida’s FoI law), is organised by a coalition of media companies, journalist associations, press freedom organisations and other civil society groups.
It’s the 40th anniversary of the US federal government’s Freedom of Information Act, but the American regional newspapers are also focusing on government secrecy and problems with FoI in their state governments and local authorities. There is, of course, a blog tracking the Sunshine Week coverage.
At the Society of Editors conference last year, journalist and FoI campaigner Heather Brooke, the author of the guidebook and blog Your Right to Know, advocated organising a similar event here in support of Britain’s young Freedom of Information Act and other open government laws.
Brooke says plans for a UK version of Sunshine Week, tentatively titled “Spotlight Week” are progressing slowly as Brooke and the Society of Editors hope to build support and funding from Britain’s notoriously competitive media organisations. Two national broadsheets are understood to have given early support to the project.
It’s unfortunate the proposal hasn’t come together in time to conincide with the American version: It would have been a good time for British journalists to campaign for open government. The FOIA appeals system is creaking under the weight of the backlog of unresolved cases at the Information Commissioner’s Office and there are political rumblings about the potential imposition of per-request fees under both the UK and Scottish versions of FOIA. Both issues threaten the utility of the British FoI laws to reporters.
