ASNE Names Winners of Local Heroes Contest

Suzanne Harris of Miramar Beach, Florida won the American Society of News Editors' Local Heroes contest. The contest honors individuals who fought tirelessly last year to make their state or local institutions more open and accessible.

When Walton County commissioners did not respond to Harris' e-mail requests for public documents, she sued. As part of the settlement, the commissioners placed the county under court scrutiny to comply with the state's Public Records Act, agreed to hold training annually for public officials and key staff, to use only official county e-mail accounts in its transactions, and to designate an employee as records management liaison officer.

Veronica Silkes of Landing, New Jersey, took second-place for founding Concerned Active Residents of Mount Arlington, a group of citizens concerned about tax increases ad expenditures in Mount Arlington. The group gathers public documents and shares information about borough affairs on its website.

Phil and Ellen Winter of Waynesboro, Virginia took third place. The pair gathered more than 100 pages of government documents after becoming concerned when they noticed the city failed to deposit their property tax check promptly. The documents showed the city treasurer allegedly had mishandled about $400,000 in city and state taxpayer money. Their tip to the local newspaper resulted in the treasurer's defeat in the fall election.

For more about the winners, click here.

Sunshine Week likely to get the shaft

Sunshine Week, started in 2005 to raise public awareness about open-government issues, is likely to lose its full-time coordinator, Columbia Journalism Review reported. Debra Gersh Hernandez, who works as the Sunshine Week outside contractor for the American Society of News Editors, predicts that she will lose her job by the end of the month. The ASNE executive director says the work will be assigned to a staffer, who will oversee Sunshine Week part time. The Knight Foundation, which originally funded the program, had reduced its funding and agreed to host a "matching funds drive with ASNE, aimed at providing a $6 million-plus endowment for the organization." The fundraising effort proved unsuccessful; ASNE raised only $471,600 of the anticipated $2.5 million, according to early May figures.

In case you haven’t heard, it’s tough times out there for newspapers: Jobs are disappearing, pages are shrinking, bureaus are closing. Here’s one more casualty for the count: unless some unexpected funding comes through, Sunshine Week, the annual nationwide media event designed to draw attention to open government issues, will soon go without a full-time coordinator.

According to Debra Gersh Hernandez, who works as the Sunshine Week outside contractor for the American Society of News Editors, she will likely be without a job by the end of the month.

“We’re still going to do Sunshine Week,” promises Scott Bosley, the executive director of the ASNE. Bosley says the organization will transfer the workload to an in-house staffer, who will plan the event on a part time basis.

More here.