Mainstream media led expensive fight

Lucy Dalglish outlined the accomplishments of the mainstream media for the past 50 years and the threats to open records laws in an address to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies,the Columbia Journalism Review reported. "I'd give anything to once again have a big bad-ass Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau out there doing what it takes to find out what really happened when we went to war in Iraq," she said. "They were far ahead of the game. And they launched a federal FOIA battle early on in the war on terror to find out how we've been treating out wounded veterans."

Last week, Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, gave a disquieting address to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies focusing on the danger to our open records and access laws as regional newspapers and other media organizations pare their legal budgets.

In the address, Dalglish outlined major advances in open government and press freedom achieved in the last 50 years: the Freedom of Information Act, open courts, case law preventing prior restraint and spurious libel claims, shield laws and whistleblower protections, countless state and local statutes that require open records and meetings.

And how does Dalglish say America won those fights?

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Full text of speech here.