Open government

Open Government, 1st Amendment Champions From Iowa Pick Up Honors

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IowaWatch honored an outstanding journalist and long-time advocate for newspapers during its seventh annual banquet Thursday night, Sept. 26, at the Des Moines Marriot Downtown. Carol Hunter was given the Stephen Berry Free Press Champion Award for a working journalist, journalism group or journalism educator in Iowa. Margaret Johnson was given the Randy Brubaker Free Press Champion Award for an Iowan who has done significant open records work over several years in a role other than journalism. Hunter has been at the Des Moines Register for nearly 15 years, serving as political editor, news director and now as the executive editor of the state’s largest newspaper.

freedom of information

Iowa FOI Council Announces Annual 1st Amendment Award Recipients

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The Iowa Freedom of Information Council this week announced the 2019 recipients of its Friend of the First Amendment Award, which is given each year in memory of longtime Iowa Press Association and Iowa Daily Press Association journalist Harrison “Skip” Weber. This year’s recipients are the mother of a police shooting victim and two Iowa newspaper editors. They will be honored on Sept. 26 during the annual Celebrating a Free Press and Open Government banquet in Des Moines. (click the button to buy a banquet ticket)

The recipients are:

Brian Cooper, the longtime editor of the Dubuque Telegraph Herald, through the years has been one of Iowa’s leading voices on the important role public access to government records and meetings plays in our democracy and in ensuring government accountability.

Randy Evans

Evans Opinion: There Is No Asterisk In This Disclosure Law

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When he was governor, Terry Branstad often voiced his frustration that he was not able to comment on the reasons a state government employee was fired or demoted. In Branstad’s view, the public — the taxpayers of Iowa — deserved to know why the action was taken against the employee. But the governor would explain that his hands were tied by a state law that keeps some information about government workers confidential. Randy Evans
STRAY THOUGHTS
Randy Evans is the executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council. He is a former editorial page editor and assistant managing editor of The Des Moines Register.

opinion

Viewing Citizens As Nuisances Is Wrong

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There have been plenty of examples that raise questions whether government boards in Iowa truly understand they work for the people, not for government officials and employees — and that they are supposed to be looking out for the best interests of taxpayers.

opinion

FOI Director Op-Ed: Iowa Needs Sunshine — On Police Videos

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Sunshine Week will be observed across the nation next week. In Iowa, the sunshine next week will be obscured by clouds — at least when it comes to citizen access to videos recorded by law officers on their squad car cameras and body cameras during incidents in which police shoot someone or when officers are fired upon.

government accountability

Evans: Some Public Boards Neglecting Their Duty To Taxpayers

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Regrettably, some high-ranking government officials either are not paying attention to how taxpayers’ money is being spent or, more accurately, misspent — or they are taking a cavalier well-it’s-not-my-money attitude, opinion columnist and Iowa Freedom of Information Council executive director Randy Evans writes.

open courts

Evans: A Judge Should Not Prohibit Publishing Facts

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On the morning of Aug. 31, shortly after 8:30, a 12-year-old boy pulled out a gun in his seventh-grade classroom in Eldridge, a community just north of Davenport. In an instant, he directed his classmates to get on the floor and then pointed the gun at his teacher’s face and squeezed the trigger. Blessedly, he did not take the gun’s safety off. The gun did not fire.

freedom of information

IowaWatch Co-Founder Returning To Iowa To Headline Sept. 27 Celebrating A Free Press And Open Government Banquet

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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Stephen J. Berry, whose push for journalists to work thoroughly and ethically led him to co-found the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism-IowaWatch, will be the annual Celebrating a Free Press and Open Government Banquet’s guest speaker in Des Moines on Thursday, September 27, 2018.