Media lawyer Rob Bertsche of Prince Lobel authored the Massachusetts chapter of the Open Government Guide, just published by the national Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The book is a 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 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.