Local, county and state governments are REQUIRED to provide access to documents and meetings under freedom of information and open meeting laws that vary from state to state. For citizen journalists seeking to obtain documents and cover local meetings, state Web sites are an obvious starting point for information about access rights.
State governments, governors and attorneys general can use their Web sites to make open government information visible, easily accessible and user-friendly. By doing so, state governments can help build cultures of transparency and government accountability and serve as positive role models for local governments within their states.
Does your state use its major Web sites to promote open and transparent government?
We looked at the Web sites of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., including state, governor and attorney general home pages and related content, and evaluated them on the basis of the visibility and quality of their online resources for citizens seeking information on rights of access to government records and meetings. Here’s a state that uses its Web site to provide an interactive platform that allows the public to submit freedom of information requests to specific agencies. Another state, by executive order, records open meetings and uses its Web site to post a searchable database of government meeting webcasts.
We gave states that in our view make good use of their Web sites to inform the public about rights of access to public meetings and records an enthusiastic thumbs up. Those that provide the basics on open meetings and records in a place or places where Web site visitors can easily find them got a check. States that, from our vantage point, need to give Web site visitors more help by either providing more comprehensive information or making information more visible, or both, received our “help wanted” rating. A few states really disappointed us. We looked high and low on their state, governor and attorney general home pages, menus and tabs. If our search resulted in little to no information about access either to public records or public meetings, we gave our thumbs down rating.
Within the state evaluation boxes, in addition to our ratings, we provide some explanation and, in some cases, suggestions for improvements. We also provide some of the links that we found to major access points for each state’s open government resources, plus links to additional information from the National Freedom of Information Coalition. Please note that many states have non-governmental public interest organizations, often supported by local press associations and news organizations, that provide open government information. We are not assessing these praiseworthy non-profit organizations or their online materials. Our focus is solely on the state governments and the open government information the states provide to the public through their official state government Web sites.
If you’re a governor or attorney general or other state official and are dissatisfied with your assessment, you have the opportunity to improve your site and seek a reevaluation. We’ll update accordingly. Just make helpful open records and open meeting resources reasonably apparent and available on your Web site and click here to provide an explanation of the improvement you’ve made and to request a reevaluation.
Hint for state governments: In addition to the high-achieving states in our survey, what is a good model for state Web sites in terms of providing the public with basic information about open government? The federal government. To be sure, the federal government can be criticized legitimately for its all-too-often sluggish response to freedom of information requests and sometimes unreasonable and chilling record search responses and cost requirements. However, when it comes to informing the public of rights of access to government records, agencies accountable under the federal Freedom of Information Act, from the Department of Agriculture through the Department of Veteran Affairs, provide obvious entry points on their home pages. Each has a “Freedom of Information” or “Freedom of Information Act” or “FOIA” tab prominently placed on a side and/or bottom menu of its home page. States could take a similar approach to make vital information about open government visible and accessible.
(c) Geanne Rosenberg