From The Associated Press, just in time for Sunshine Week: If a local or state official in Tennessee refuses to release a public document, the only recourse is to file an expensive civil lawsuit. But there are some efforts to change that this year.
Gov. Phil Bredesen has said he will put money in the budget to create an open records ombudsman, someone to help people who are refused access to public records.
The Meridian Star, which a few months back started posting video reports on its Website, has now raised the curtain on its newsroom meetings.
Leslie Criss, features editor at the Daily Journal, reminisces about starting her career and the indelible mark longtime Carthaginian executive editor Mildred Dearman made in it.
Jeanni Atkins, executive director of the Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information: Revelations about the failure to properly take care of soldiers returning from Iraq and unfolding stories about problems in other veterans’ facilities remind us that access to information is essential to accountability.
Writes FOI attorney Leonard Van Slyke: “The basic premise of a democracy is an informed citizenry. Armed with the necessary information, we believe that citizens can and will exercise the right to vote in a thoughtful way and come to correct decisions. To do so, citizens must have necessary information about their government at their disposal.”
Hinds County Emergency Management Agency Chief Bonehead Director Larry Fisher threatened Clarion-Ledger reporter Chris Joyner with jail for not identifying himself as a journalist and for pressing the issue of trying to obtain a copy of the county’s emergency preparedness plan, which is a public document. Fisher even went as far as to run a criminal background check and contact the FBI over the Joyner’s inquiries.
Writes the C-L’s editorial board: “A basic tenet of the American model of democracy is that individual civil liberties are worth protecting. One of the most precious civil liberties is the right of the public to have open access to public records and public meetings.”
One reason the Hinds authorities might be a little prickly when it comes to the plan: It hasn’t been updated in seven years – since before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Trying to dig up information these days - from alleged beatings in a county jail to crime statistics for the capital city - is increasingly forcing news organizations to go to court, reports The Associated Press’ Holbrook Mohr, who interviewed FOI attorney Leonard Van Slyke for a weekend piece on Sunshine Week.
Can’t get enough of Frank Melton? Yeah, we thought so. Whether or not you’ve had it up to your eyebrows with the whole circus, Marhsall Ramsey’s Internet-archive of his work on the Frank Melton Saga is always entertaining. Recently updated, too.
Daily Journal features editor Leslie Criss comments on the national press’ love affair with Tupelo, which, in case you haven’t heard, laid the golden egg for Gov. Haley Barbour landed a rather notable industry last week.
In a related story, The Commercial Appeal pinpoints the three crucial factors that gave Tupelo the edge in the race to lure Toyota. Oh, what a feeling!
Full-page ads in college newspapers this week, including The Daily Mississippian at Ole Miss, call on university leaders, athletic conferences and the NCAA to “stop the madness” by banning alcohol marketing from college sports.
In another completely unrelated story totally lacking in irony, The University of Mississippi received a $300,000 grant from Anheuser-Busch officials to combat underage and abusive drinking at the Oxford school.
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