In his segment, Pewitt provided an overview of Alabama’s laws and statutes regarding public records.

Alabama Code Section 36-12-40 states: “Every citizen has a right to inspect and take a copy
of any public writing of this state, except as otherwise expressly provided by statute.”

Pewitt said Alabama’s open records law is much more cryptic than many states and reads more like a statement of policy than anything. Generally, though,  a “public writing” constitutes court records or documents made with public treasury.

However, thanks to Stone v. Consolidated Publishing, there are four specific exceptions to open records.  They are the following: (1) recorded information received by a public officer in confidence; (2) sensitive personnel records, i.e. medical records; (3) pending criminal investigations; and (4) records that would be “detrimental to the public.”  That last one is a little scary, and many feel it further clouded the issue. Thankfully, the burden does fall on the government to prove a document is not a public record.

Another drawback to Alabama’s law is that there is no time limit for the government entity to hand over a public record.  Also, there is no specific statute limiting fees on copies of documents.  In general, however, the fees should be no more than the costs to locate and copy the documents.

In his segment, Archibald provided the following tips for reporters seeking public information:

1. Talk to people at the agency. Not just the mayor and councilmen, but the people in the cubicles who actually do the work.  He told a story about a board of education worker who told him he might want to look through maintenance logs.  After searching through hundred of note cards, he found that a 70-year-old worker had logged over $1 million in landscaping work during one summer.
2. Stay on the people obligated to hand over the documents.  Even when your deadline has passed, and you don’t need the document anymore.  It’s important to show bureaucrats they cannot win by stalling reporters.
3. If you’re told no, always take the issue to a higher authority.  If a clerk says you cannot have a document, ask to speak with his or her supervisor.  If the supervisor says the same thing, ask to speak with the city attorney.  Your final recourse is a civil lawsuit demanding the information.
4. In extreme cases, find out the programs and software used at the facility and offer to copy the documents yourself.  Archibald remembered one instance where someone was going to charge him more than $2,000 for what would be the equivalent of copying a few files to a CD.
5. Be polite but insistent when necessary.  “Public records do not belong to the government agency. They belong to the public, they belong to you.”
6. When you are denied public records, write about it.

I hope this was useful. If I’ve left anything out, please let me know.  Also, I have all the handouts and audio of the speeches if anyone would be interested.

I’m gonna have to do Google Reader this week because I can’t find anything else worth writing about.  I really need to find that handout Dr. Lowrey gave us with the list of sites.

When I heard Justin Thurman talking about Google Reader, it didn’t seem like my cup of tea.  But, one day, back when we actually had free time, I tried it out and loved it.  I know it has absolutely no visual element to it, but you got to give it credit for uber-convenience. 

In case some of you aren’t familiar with this site.  It basically takes RSS feeds from different news organizations and allows you to subscribe to them (I think anyway).  They are sent to your Google Reader account and set up much like an e-mail system.  Instead of a subject heading, it’s a headline.  You can click on a headline to get a brief synopsis of the story and click on the synopsis to link to the actual story on its original website.  You can star certain items and mark the rest as read.  Also, you can organize your subscriptions into folders. 

I know it’s a stretch, but I think community news organizations could make use of something like this.  Maybe have readers set up an account where the content they prefer will be the first to display.  

At the very least, I think local news organizations can make their news more applicable to Google Reader.  Each of my subscriptions differ in how they appear on Reader.  The Tuscaloosa News for example only displays a brief sentence about the story when you click on its headline.  However, G4 often has photos, much longer synopses (often the entire story) and video. 

I don’t know how difficult it would be to make your RSS feed more Google Reader friendly.  But if newspapers could do it without spending a bunch of money or man-hours, they could potentially bring a lot more eyes to their website. 

Now, if we could only figure out how to make the website profitable we would really be onto something.  See you guys in 12 hours.

As I was desperately trying to find a news website that was worth writing 500 words about, I remembered someone mentioning Slate.com at the lunch on Wednesday.

At first glance it doesn’t seem that different from most other news sites.  But there are some great nuances about this website that I really enjoy.

First, they actually put some thought into visual layout.  The area for the top stories fits almost like a puzzle piece with the main advertisement, which is the most dominant thing of the page.

The top stories section is also divided into three different types of layouts.  The most dominant is a slideshow type system where users click on numbered tabs at the bottom.  The designers use great, magazine-style artwork and headlines. Directly to the right of that is a numbered list of stories with just a headline and subhead.  And below them both is yet another layout where users can look at small groups of pictures with a headline underneath.  They simply click on an arrow at the left or right to get a new group of pictures.

The site also has a section with four tabs.  One for the today’s  political cartoons, another for today’s videos, another for today’s pictures and yet another for today’s “Doonesbury.”

When a user clicks on a story, the text is studded with phrases that are all hyperlinks to stories. Not just similar stories on the same website but all kinds of links to different stories from different websites that happen to be loosely related to the original story.

To be honest I can’t quite put my finger on what makes it so visually pleasing.  But, despite its busyness, it has great color schemes and gives you a sense of hierarchy. Also, the pictures they use are astounding.  I saw about five that could have easily been the centerpiece art for the New York Times.

Slate also offers a mobile news website for all you cool cats with iPhones. Unfortunately, I don’t have internet access on my phone so I’ll have to remain ignorant about the mobile features of the site.

Slate was founded in 1996 as a general interest online magazine and is owned by the Washington Post Company.

It didn’t seem like that new of a concept to me.

But a few months later, when I got bored of jumping back and forth between the New York Times and the Tuscaloosa News websites, I gave it a shot.  I was thrilled to see articles from people like Andrew Sullivan, P. J. O’Rourke and Fareed Zakaria.  Some of my favorites from Real Time with Bill Maher.  Sadly, I have yet to see an article from brother Cornel West, but one can still dream.

As it turns out, the site not only sifted through the web for the best national stories, but it also provided articles from leading figures in politics and various experts regarding the latest topics in the news.  The Beast also provides links to some of the better sites for political, general and entertainment news.  It also provides clips with highlights of television news and talk shows.

More than a great national news website, I think the Beast has many innovations that could easily translate to community news organizations.  They are as follows:

1. It’s “cheatsheet,” which is a list of the top ten news stories of the day.  Each story on the list has a short summary of the article. If you want to read more, you can click to link to the actual story on say the Times web site.  I think small newspapers should do that with their wire news on their websites.  I don’t need to read 30 inches on Iranian nuclear talks.  A paragraph will do just fine for that.
2. It’s format for displaying the stories written by the actual Beast staff.  It’s basically a running slide show of photos with a large headline and a subhead underneath.  So often, you see newspaper websites just listing their stories on the site with one photo for the main story.  I think it would be a way to attract more readers to stories with minimal effort.
3. The “cheatsheet worthy” polls. Readers can vote on each of the stories as to whether they’re worthy of the top ten “cheatsheet.” Each story shows the percentage of votes.  This seems like a great way to get instant feedback about the tastes of readers, allowing the Beast to better tailor their news. In addition, readers can offer links to news sites they feel are better-suited for the top-ten list.
4. The “Buzzboard,” where the experts recommend books, films, art and music etc.  Small newspapers could have the same things with experts in the area.

From what I hear, the Beast also offers great content in regards to fashion and the culinary world.  I’m kinda low-brow in those areas, so I’m probably not the best judge.  Regardless, I think community journalists can utilize certain aspects of this web site to better reach their readers.