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It’s heartening to see online media stepping up for freedom of information on the federal level, and I’m hopeful the efforts eventually will carry through to state and local governments.
This piece in Columbia Journalism Review details several efforts by unlikely newsrooms — Buzzfeed? Vice? — to invest in Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.
Not just FOIA requests, mind you. Lawsuits.
I’ve not seen a similar attitude yet in Nevada. Newspapers, particularly the Reno Gazette-Journal and Las Vegas Review-Journal, are still far out in front on pressing matters of public records, open meetings and so on.
Similarly, we — the Nevada Press Association — routinely are by ourselves when we take on such matters before the Nevada Legislature. But that’s one reason the NPA also represents online-only media. It benefits us all.
I think it’s a just matter of time when online-only media get more involved in fighting the government for access to information. They will have their own issues, and raw data is a huge one.
In the meantime, the CJR piece is worth reading as a motivator to file more FOIA requests, to be more aggressive and to follow with lawsuits when necessary.
The really discouraging part of the whole process isn’t necessarily the cost, because news organizations can sue to recover their attorney fees. Most discouraging is that government agencies, when they lose, simply pass all those costs back to the taxpayers they are supposed to be serving.