Number of news organizations covering federal agencies has fallen since 2003

In the late 1990s, AJR began to systematically track coverage of federal departments and agencies through the Project on the State of the American Newspaper. One of the goals was to determine how coverage by newspapers and wire services had changed over time.

To do that, AJR selected departments and agencies that deal with everyday issues such as food safety, taxes, airline policy, the economy, veterans' benefits and workplace rules. Four times--in 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2004--we checked to see whether they were covered by full-time beat reporters and, if so, by which news outlets. [They] defined full time as two-thirds of a reporter's time covering the department and closely related issues.

[They] did that again this year, thanks to a grant from the Open Society Institute, on the heels of a recession that brought on or accelerated layoffs, buyouts and bureau closings.

Read more here.

NASA Ranks First in an Audit of Agency Open Government Plans

OpenTheGovernment.org, using a team of volunteers from non-profit groups, academia, and other organizations, conducted an audit of the strongest and weakest agency Open Government Plans. The Obama administration's Open Government Directive required executive agencies to develop and publish Open Government Plans by April 7. The results of the independent audit rank NASA at the top of its list, and the Justice Department at the bottom.

For more information, click here.

Massey Mine Disaster Investigation - Open or Closed to the Public?

The Charleston Gazette would like the federal and state investigations into the Massey Mine Disaster of April 11 to be public hearings. To allow investigative interviews to be conducted in the open, despite the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration's historic insistence that the proceedings be conducted behind closed doors. The question remains, will President Barack Obama's open government initiatives have any influence on the proceedings?

Read more here.

Federal Agencies Announce Open Government Plans

Federal departments and agencies released their Open Government Plans today. The Plains aim to make operations and data more transparent and increase opportunities for citizen oversight of the government.

Examples of each agency's "flagship initiative" include:

• Department of Health and Human Services' Community Health Data Initiative: The department will provide a free, large-scale Community Health Data Set including downloadable data on community health care costs, quality, access, and public health.
• Department of Energy's Open Energy Information Initiative: The department will make more than 60 clean energy resources and data sets, including maps of worldwide solar and wind potential, information on climate zones, and best practices available.
• Department of Housing and Urban Development's Homelessness Prevention Resources Initiative: The department will develop tools to predict communities that are at risk so that resources can be allotted to prevent homelessness.

For more information, click here.

Getting Public Information Out of the Metal File Cabinets

Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY proposed the 2010 Public Online Information Act, which he says is designed to take public information "out of the metal file cabinets and into the sunlight of the Internet." The measure would require each agency to create a searchable catalog of materials it makes publicly available, including where the records can be found, whether the records are available for free or for a fee, and a brief description of the records.

More about the proposed POIA here.

Federal Agency Datasets Now Available; Interactive Transparency Tracker Marks Progress

Federal agencies have posted nearly 300 new sets of raw data online as part of the Open Government Directive.

Click here for ProPublica's interactive chart, the Transparency Tracker, which provides an independent assessment of the federal agencies' efforts toward more open governmental transparency

Nice look at federal secrcey from an FOI warrior

Jon Wiener, the author of, among other books, "Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files," wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.

Federal Law Restricts Public Access to Gun Shop Inspection Records

As part of its investigation into the West Milwaukee gun store known as Badger Guns & Ammo, Badger Outdoors and Badger Guns, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has sought records to determine the compliance history of these gun dealers whose guns were used to wound six officers in Milwaukee over the past two years.

But the papers efforts have been stymied by a law that strictly limits what information the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can release on gun shop inspections. The law requires heavy redaction of inspection documents and a limit of the ATF's release of gun trace data.

Read more about the law's effect on law enforcement here.

Lawsuit Asks Government How it Cyber-Stalks

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and UC Berkeley's Samuelson Center has sued a number of federal agencies to force them to release documents regarding the use of social networking sites, like YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, as part of investigative procedures.

The FOIA requests seek manuals on the procedures for accessing social sites, policies for creating fake identities, and software used to analyze data harvested.

Read more here.

How do you define transparency?

The following essay from GovernmentExecutive.com provides an interesting look at what federal agencies really think about transparency. The story refers to a survey in which 90 percent of 452 federal managers "viewed transparency as providing facts and figures on project results and findings," not necessarily providing the supporting data and documents behind results. Only 26 percent considered providing meeting minutes in their definition of transparency.

When President Obama issued his Day One memos instructing members of his administration to operate under principles of openness to spur citizen engagement, government watchdogs cheered. They hailed the call - a nod to his campaign promise to make government more transparent - as unprecedented and said it was a welcome change from the past eight years.

But in the weeks since Obama's pledge that transparency would be a touchstone of his presidency, policy watchers have turned their attention to the details. What exactly is government transparency? How is it interpreted by those inside government who need to execute it? How will it be measured? What will it look like to the public?

Those questions are hard to answer, and the responses depend largely on who you are. Academics and good government advocates believe agencies should provide their raw data and internal evaluations of policies so the public can dig into the information to find answers to their own questions. Others believe agencies must impose order to the data so the public can easily draw conclusions. Still others believe the Obama administration should choose to show the results of programs and initiatives, and not provide the supporting data, documents or internal discussions on the thinking behind their decisions or what led to a particular outcome.

More here.

Challenges to White House 2.0

Bringing the social networking tools of his campaign to the White House won't be easy for President Obama. The red tape is unbelievable. Federal government Web pages can't even hyperlink to nongovernmental sites, like the Red Cross. A Clinton-era law may make it illegal for users to submit suggestions via a social network without the federal agency going through a lengthy approval process.

In November, not two weeks after winning the election and still two months from becoming commander in chief, Barack Obama brought the government into the 21st century. Or at least that was what we were told when he released his first Web video address as president-elect. The clip, billed by some as a modern fireside chat, was embedded as a YouTube video on Change.gov, the incoming administration's Web site. Sitting in a leather chair, framed slightly off center from his chest up, Obama delivered a three-minute talk on the economic crisis, vlog style.

The video quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of views, and within a few days hundreds of blogs were linking to it. Obama's foray into viral video, the story went, heralded the beginning of a new era in government communication and transparency—"Franklin Roosevelt 2.0," in the words of The Huffington Post. The Washington Post proclaimed the advent of the "YouTube presidency."

More here.

More thoughts on Obama's orders for more openness

Ellen Miller, director of the Sunlight Foundation, told the Washington Post that "public information" should mean government data that is available online and easy to download. Miller suggested that agencies take stock of what information they maintain and how the data are distributed. What was slightly disconcerting to Miller was that Obama's memos and executive orders were not posted to the White House Web site by late Wednesday afternoon.

More of the Washington Post story here.

For additional coverage, see:

• Obama promises a more openness, Chicago Sun-Times: "Hot damn! This is astondishing. And wonderful," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "You know there's a new sheriff in town."
• Obama orders could open records, Washington Post: Obama's new stance on open records could mean the disclosure of records that have been off limits to the public and reporters, such as details on toxic chemical spills and the drugs administered to Guantanamo Bay prisoners. However, Obama's memos don't discuss the labeling of documents as "controlled unclassified information."
• On day one, Obama overturns era of White House secrecy, Editor & Publisher: Rick Blum, coordinator of the Sunshine in Government Initiative said: “Yesterday’s policy of 'When in doubt, leave it out,' today became, 'When it doubt, let it out.' And this policy will help keep the public informed in our technology-driven, connected society. On open government, the dawn is breaking."
• President Obama's open government imperatives must trickle down to cities, MediaShift Idea Lab: Blogger Daniel X. O'Neil wrote: "To the mayors of every city in the United States, the message is clear: Nearly 67,000,000 people voted for Barack Obama on Election Day. Many of them are voting in your city, too. More than a million people went outside in Washington, DC to hear and see this President get inaugurated. Today, hundreds of thousands of them returned home to your cities, your neighborhoods, your tax bases. There's no reason to expect less of you than we've gotten from our President. Change is coming."
• Opening government on day one, The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: "That this message was issued on Day One is a huge step toward opening access to the federal government. And it is crucial that this message came from the very top. However, the public will need to be no less diligent in utilizing the laws to request information and continuing to hold this new administration accountable just as any other."

Bushies Going Out With a Bang...

ProPublica and Columbia Journalism Review teamed up to take a look at the back-door secrecy as W exits the building:

As one of the most secretive presidential administrations in history gets ready to close up shop, it's closing a few more things -- records. Over the past few months, some federal agencies have issued rules that would eliminate public disclosure of information -- or, in some cases, make it more difficult for requesters to get information.

While the federal Freedom of Information Act regulates what government information may be withheld from the public, internal rules determine how that law is carried out at the agency level. Those rules also may restrict access to information.

Missoula County denied information from U.S. Forest Service

It's not just journalists who are getting their FOIA requests denied or not fully filled. Missoula County in Montana requested information from the U.S. Forest Service about the agency's discussions with Plum Creek Timber Co. The excuse for the only "partial" response? To protect against "public confusion that might result from disclosure."

Many workers keep little secrets from their employers — how much time they spend on private e-mail, for example, or how many pens find their way home in pockets.

But it's less likely that they have a lot of big secrets — such as contracts or deals with other organizations that alter the way they do business in significant ways — ways that may adversely affect the employer.

There's one organization, though, where large secrets are routinely, head-shakingly, kept from the boss: the government of the United States — more important, the bureaucrats who run it.

More here.