An extensive Associated Press analysis of Freedom of Information Act performance, based on legally required FOIA reports and statistics, was just one of many this week. Other Sunshine Week coverage also tried to take a broad view of how the federal government was doing on the openness front. Spoiler alert: not so good.
Some major U.S. journalism organizations are increasingly fed up with federal public affairs offices acting "more like prison guards than gate-keepers." The latest outbreak of frustration was at a March 19, 2014, panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Read comments by panelists — who agreed that the situation would not get better without organized and creative pushback from journalists.
It was a crisis. Charleston, WV, residents had just been told not to drink city water because of a chemical spill upstream of its intake. It would seem routine to call the US EPA and ask for information or comment — and that's just what prize-winning Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward Jr. did. He waited a week for EPA to get back to him on the record. SEJ wants to know why such communication delays at EPA have become the norm.
Spin control and the security state may have taken large bites out of the First Amendment in recent years, but the pushback celebration known as Sunshine Week has never been more robust. Pushing for open government is a trend. Nowhere is this more true than on the environment and energy beats.
"The food and beverage giant's new sweetener causes confusion with claims of FDA approval."
"President Obama wants Americans to see how climate change will remake their own backyards — and to make it as easy as opening a web-based app."
SEJ invites members to sign up for an exclusive online preview screening and discussion with the Executive Producer/Co-Creator of the SHOWTIME® documentary-series YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY, Apr 2, 2014 at 1 pm EDT. Executive Producer David Gelber will be joined by YEARS Correspondent + Executive VP of Conservation International M. Sanjayan, and Chief Science Advisors Heidi Cullen, Ph.D.,and Joe Romm, Ph.D., for a discussion and Q&A with SEJ members, moderated by Peter Dykstra, Publisher of DailyClimate.org and Environmental Health News.
"MANCHESTER, N.H. — In this small state with a very big legislature, the top official at the association for grocery stores knew he had a lot of people to convince about an important food-labeling bill. But he also had a lot of members on his side."
The Wyoming Supreme Court is telling a lower court to reconsider whether the public has the right to know the ingredients in the chemical products used to facilitate hydraulic fracturing."
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