When an athlete disappears from a major-college sports team, the back-story is a matter of intense public interest and speculation.
Tag: Transparency Tuesday
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Colleges can contract out their services — but they can’t contract away public disclosure
With cash-strapped government agencies seeking to contract functions out to private vendors and shrink the public workforce, the "savings" sometimes include economizing on transparency.Journalists seeking information on how public services get delivered are frequently told that the corporate contractors who provide "privatized" government services need not honor requests for public records.Strictly speaking, most state open-records laws apply to documents that are kept, created or used by government agencies in the performance of their duties.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Profiling a bad guy? His rap sheet may be just a click away.
You're researching a news story on deadline about a crime. All you have is the sketchy information from a police report: The name, date of birth, and other vital statistics of the person in custody.In most states, that thumbnail of information is enough to get almost instantaneous access to extensive details about the person's criminal history -- free of charge -- and often a useable photo as well.State Department of Corrections databases are an under-appreciated resource for journalists on the crime beat.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Don’t take “no” for a public-records answer — and don’t take “copyright,” either
On occasion, people in positions of public authority know "just enough law to be dangerous" -- not enough to actually get the answer right, but enough to convince themselves that they have, because the answer has lots of authoritative-sounding words in it.This is the story of one such occasion.Recently, the SPLC attorney hotline received what started out as an unremarkable call from a college journalist whose request to a government agency for public records was denied.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Hang on tightly to your FOI access — the legislature is back in session
If legislative sponsors in New York get their way, it soon will be unlawful for college athletic departments to provide a team roster to The Washington Post, ESPN or any other national news organization.It sounds crazy, but it's the result of a pair of privacy-on-steroids bills, S2357 and A8474, filed last year in the New York legislature and awaiting consideration this session.These measures -- which began as limited and well-intentioned efforts to protect student confidentiality and morphed during committee hearings into something much more -- are emblematic of the mischief that sweeps the country this time of year, when state legislatures typically come back into session.A survey by American Journalism Review found that the number of reporters assigned to cover state capitols declined 32 percent between 2003 and 2009.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: The (surveillance) camera never blinks — and other tales from a wired, watched world
For many people, it's unsettling to live in a "watched" world where security cameras record every public movement, cell phones keep track of locations, and websites monitor searching and visiting habits.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Court rulings clarify public’s right of access to elected officials’ emails
It is now firmly established that emails sent or received by government officials are subject to public review under state open-records laws.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: No need for your No. 2 pencil. Just bring your skepticism.
Two recent announcements have spotlighted the importance of public records in bringing to light what now appears to be rampant dishonesty among school employees in fudging standardized test scores to improve their schools' rankings.Item One was the news from Oklahoma that the state was throwing out test results from six schools where investigators concluded scores were artificially inflated.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: What’s in your wallet? Maybe your college’s sticky fingers!
If you left college with a shelf full of Visa drink Koozies, Visa beach towels and Visa visors, there's an excellent chance you also took a load of Visa credit-card debt with you.A 2009 study found that the average U.S.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Is Big Brother watching you — from above? FOIA suit may reveal whether you’re on Candid Drone-Cam.
To the ever-growing list of technology-aided privacy anxieties (does Google Image Recognition really think I look like a publicity photo from "Planet of the Apes," and did I have broccoli between my teeth when the ATM camera was on?), add this one: Are government drones videotaping my bald spot?In a suit filed Jan.