Last Updated: December 29, 2000
Printer-friendly version
Freedom of information
What’s in ASNE’s FOI project
The first year will focus on outlining the challenges freedom of information
faces in the digital era. The second year will be devoted to developing
ASNE’s strategy in response. Here are the elements of the project:
2000-2001
• A public opinion poll, sponsored by the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment
Center and conducted just after the first of the year, will pose a series
of questions on government openness, the public’s right to know and
privacy issues. Focus groups are planned for this fall to prepare for the
survey.
• A national survey of newspaper editors across the country will look
at how we see these same questions. The survey will also look at how well
our newsrooms are using FOIA and state access statutes.
• Several committee members, along with a research assistant, are spending
the year studying the commercial records business that has sprung up on
the Web. Part of a $10 billion data-warehousing industry, the records firms
are using public documents in new commercial ways. The research should
help editors learn more about what this competition means for us.
• Results of this work will be ready for the convention next year.
2001-2002
• The committee will start the second year by drawing up the central
questions an ASNE strategy would need to address, from our industry’s stand
on privacy to what model legislation government agencies could use to deal
with the many new public records questions.
• We’ll ask for feedback from FOI leaders from over the years, editors
and journalism professors.
• The committee will propose an FOI summit to collect ideas, debate
and hammer out a draft of this strategy.
• During the year, we’ll also be collecting “best practices’’ from newspapers
around the nation to help editors make better use of public records and
develop strong policies at their newspapers.
• A proposed strategy will be ready for ASNE’s 2002 convention.
