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The Mississippi Public Records Act says only that public bodies can charge no more than the “actual cost” to search, review or duplicate records.

Two state legislators tried this session to clarify what public bodies can charge for records, but both bills died in the Senate.

Open government advocates say Mississippi can do a better job of providing access to information, but citizens have to demand it.

Citizen democracy is gaining momentum across the country, writes Jeanni Atkins, executive director of the Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information.

There is a newfound reawakening and a sense of citizen empowerment at the grass-roots level to make collective voices heard in policy decisions and to demand government transparency and accountability.

RELATED:

• Mississippi so often comes in last among the states on measures of success that there’s little surprise - only resignation - when a new category is added.
• A bright spot: The Mississippi Department of Education’s voluminous Web site is chock full of data on student achievement, enrollment, district finances and demographics. In fact, one of the problems with the site is the amount of information.
• From Delta Democrat Times editor Dominick Cross: “Here it is, National Sunshine Week. And while it’s a good and necessary thing for which it stands, I find it perplexing that we even have to have a week set aside to remind people of their right to know.”
• From The Greenwood Commonwealth: Mississippi has a habit of being guarded about how much information it makes available to the public and how easily. Its public records and open meetings laws are littered with exemptions. If those in public office can’t hide behind one of those, they create new obstacles to disclosure, such as charging an exorbitant amount to produce the records, or drag their feet unnecessarily producing the documents.

Coopwood Communications, publisher of the Delta Business Journal and Delta magazine, has launched a weekly newspaper published on Sunday. The Cleveland Current is published on Sundays.

Americans can easily learn about their state songs and state flowers with a quick search on the Internet, but most will have a harder time checking whether their children’s school buses are safe or a local gas station is charging too much.

50-state survey of government information accessible online, conducted as part of the annual Sunshine Week campaign, found that while official records are increasingly available on the Internet, some important information is missing.

Mississippi ranks last once again. Mississippi still requires requests for most documents by mail or in person and sometimes requires payment for records.Mississippi has online data from only four of 20 categories examined by the Sunshine Week 2009 Survey of State Government Information Online. The study, released Sunday, was developed by Sunshine Week, the American Society of Newspaper Editors‘ Freedom of Information Committee, the National Freedom of Information Coalition and the Society of Professional Journalists’ FOI Committee.

RELATED:

• Most of Jackson’s mayoral candidates have promised an open and transparent administration, and a few even have concrete ideas on how to accomplish that.
• Commentary: Mississippi can and should do better than rank last among U.S. states for putting government information online.
• Commentary: Let’s say you want to find out if your doctor has been disciplined by the Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure. You go online to check the records but can’t find anything.

Clay Foster, president of Tupelo-based Journal Publishing, declares in a Sunday column that, despite the bleak national headlines, “Newspapers, and especially community newspapers, are not on the verge of collapse.”

Kathleen Williams has departed the Hattiesburg American as executive editor after Gannett cut the position. Managing Editor Dan Davis, a veteran Mississippi journalist, assumes oversight of the paper’s editorial coverage.

The Clarksdale Press Register will cut back to publishing two days a week beginning April 1. Subscribers will receive a mailed newspaper each Wednesday and Friday. Publisher Ed Nichols announced the changes to readers and advertisers Tuesday.

The change brings the total number of newspapers published five-days-a-week or more in Mississippi to 21.