Reporters Committee releases update of state open government guide

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is pleased to announce the release of a new edition of our comprehensive guide to open government laws in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The guide is available for free on the Reporters Committee’s Web site (www.rcfp.org/ogg), and is also available for purchase.

The Fifth Edition of the guide is the first under the new name — the Open Government Guide. The guide was formerly titled Tapping Officials’ Secrets.

The updated compendium — a collection of easy-to-maneuver outlines addressing key components of open records and open meetings laws — builds upon the previous editions and adds an emphasis on the difficulties accessing certain information due to privacy and national security concerns arising in the post-9/11 era.

“The compendium of open meeting and open records laws is the cornerstone of our services to reporters trying to make sure that public information flows to citizens,” said Lucy A. Dalglish, Executive Director of the Reporters Committee. “We hope it gets frequent use in every newsroom in America.”

Authors of each state outline are open government experts whose law practices often include access issues and who have usually worked on the previous editions.

The Open Government Guide is available for purchase, either as one bound volume or in individual state booklets (see www.rcfp.org/orderform).