Transparency News 3/18/16

State and Local Stories

It’s Sunshine Week, an annual week-long national dialogue between the news media and public officials about the importance of open government and freedom of information. So it was an opportune time for a dogged Associated Press reporter to discover that a Prince William County court had a non-disclosure policy on releasing documents to reporters, but not the general public. And then for the Prince William court to promptly rescind that policy on Thursday. [Under the policy], in effect since 2011. Reporters may only see the basic warrant and complaint in a criminal case, but no more. No motions, no orders, no booking sheets, no nothing. And be sure to get a photo ID of that pesky reporter, according to the policy issued by former Chief District Judge Wenda Travers.
Washington Post

The sun is certainly shining on Hanover County and the rest of Virginia, especially this week, which is nationally recognized as Sunshine Week. Once a year, news outlets, civic groups, schools and other stakeholders participate in a national effort to support and promote access to information and an open government. As a part of the initiative, the Herald-Progress performed a countywide Freedom of Information audit to determine how accessible information is to citizens. In Hanover, retrieving information from all aspects of the county proved to be a cinch—custodians of the records responded in a timely manner and responses were received in the same fashion.
Herald-Progress

Plea deals are a part of the criminal justice system that draws little attention — the state's court system does not track how many result in reduced charges or suspended penalties that don't send people to jail, although it does report than more than four in 10 felony cases are resolved by some kind of deal. The state court system's administrators and most of Virginia's circuit court clerks have refused to release a database that among other things includes details about plea bargains that are formally recorded by circuit court clerks. The Daily Press obtained those records — nearly 474,000 case status reports covering a 10-year period across Hampton Roads — with the assistance of an independent computer engineer.
Daily Press


National Stories
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To commemorate Sunshine Week and today’s celebration of National Freedom of Information Day, the First Amendment Foundation and The Poynter Institute have launched a new online “Sunshine Certificate” to help educate elected officials, attorneys, journalists and citizenson open government laws. The online “Sunshine Certificate” programs combine the best of the First Amendment Foundation’s training with the flexibility of online learning. Florida public officials, attorneys, journalists and citizens are able to choose the training that meets their needs.
Poynter

In honor of Sunshine Week, I asked fellow journalists on Twitter to share their favorite open government stories from around the country. Here are some of their top picks along with a few of my favorites, including a story I worked on with several news organizations in North Carolina. If I missed your favorite Sunshine Week story, send me a link on Twitter @RecordsGeek.
Poynter


Editorials/Columns

There were two ways in which Virginia Tech water researchers went about exposing that the municipal water in Flint, Michigan was contaminated with lead. The first, of course, was to actually test the water. The second was less scientific but led to revelations just as useful: Professor Marc Edwards filed a Freedom of Information Act request. Fourteen of them, in fact. The documents he got in return showed just how much state and local officials knew about the contaminated water and what they weren’t doing about it. In fact, they show that Michigan officials were actively covering up reports of elevated lead levels in the blood tests of some Flint children. We sometimes tend to think of these as “press access” laws, but, as the Flint case shows, freedom of information laws belong to everybody.
Roanoke Times

What do Ghana, El Salvador, Lithuania and Namibia have in common? They all rank higher on the World Press Freedom Index than the United States (which ranks 49 out of 180 listed countries).  While this ranking isn’t horrible — it’s a far cry from say a ranking in the 100’s (Eritrea beat North Korea to the lowest ranking of 180) it is a surprising result that the self-proclaimed “land of the free, home of the brave” would be bested by 48 other nations. This week is sunshine week — if you pay attention to a wide range of news sources this is something (I hope) that you are probably already aware of. If you’re not, according to the organization’s official website, sunshine week looks to “promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information (FOIA).” In a growing age that sees theatrics preside over hard news and politics (see: Donald Trump’s penis is larger than Marco Rubio’s) the importance of FOIA can often go overlooked. But it affects you, the everyday person, in more ways than just how available information was (and is) to local, national and international news organizations.
Herald-Progress

This is not a good look. As much as the administration of Mayor Dwight C. Jones and others might want to say, “Move along, nothing to see here,” we can’t help rubbernecking at the train wreck that is city government. When the words “grand jury,” “FBI” and “state police” appear in the same headline, you don’t want to be the person the story is about. As it turns out, the mayor opened the door and invited police inside to investigate.
Michael Paul Williams, Richmond Times-Dispatch

No matter how his press spokesman tries to spin it, Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones cannot be happy that he has become the focus of a State Police inquiry. But nobody can say he wasn’t asking for it. When revelations came to light that the city’s director of public works, Emmanuel Adediran, had been spending city time helping get Jones’ new church built, Jones called for the State Police to investigate. Perhaps that was simply bravado. Former Democratic presidential contender Gary Hart did much the same thing when rumors about his private life began to swirl. Obviously, an investigation hardly amounts to a conviction. Perhaps the State Police will walk away from the Jones inquiry convinced everyone — including this newspaper — has made a big deal out of nothing. Frankly, that would come as a relief.
Richmond Times-Dispatch