In spite of strong statements from the White House supporting open government, "the secrecy reflex at some agencies remains firmly in place," Associated Press president and CEO Tom Curley said in prepared remarks to a Senate panel examining the state of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) today. Curley, who was testifying on behalf of the Sunshine in Government Initiative, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Obama message to agencies to be more transparent whenever possible has not yet translated into big changes when federal agencies process FOIA requests.

Continue ReadingFOIA Should be Stronger, SGI Tells Senate

Sophie Blackall uses "Missed Connections" ads from Craigslist and the Village Voice as source material for her "playful prints using Chinese ink and watercolor," the New York Times reports. "I lost about two hours of my life reading them and thought this is just an extraordinary mine of material, ranging from the lyrical, poetic to unintentionally hilarious," she says of the ads. "Many of them threw out ideas for images to me right away." Blackall, who compiled the work on a blog earlier this year and has opened an Etsy shop, says she's also negotiating a book deal for the illustrations.

Continue ReadingBrooklyn Illustrator Turns Classified Ads into Art

Washington City Paper has not been available on Catholic University's campus since May, when the alt-weekly ran a story on the school's campus sex ban, "Screw U: Inside the Secret Sex Life of Catholic University." The university's director of public affairs tells the campus paper The Tower that City Paper's removal was brought on by its "hateful article ridiculing our Catholic faith" but declined to provide any further details. "Whether or not that article was a true portrayal of students, we should be able to decide for ourselves whether or not it's worth reading," sophomore Joe McAnaney says. "It's disappointing that I can't just pick up the City Paper in the Pryz [the student center] anymore, even though I understand the University's decision."

Continue ReadingCatholic University Bans Washington City Paper After Sex Story

Jeffrey Billman, who won first place for investigative reporting in the under-50,000 circulation category for his Orlando Weekly piece "Might Makes Right," will discuss the story with Weekly editor Bob Whitby in a conversation moderated by the San Francisco Bay Guardian's Tim Redmond. Like last week, the live chat will happen right here on AAN.org and will take place Friday at 3 pm EDT.

Continue ReadingAnother ‘How I Got that Story’ Live Chat Slated for This Friday

The Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists announced the winners of its 2009 Excellence in Journalism Awards last week, and three alt-weeklies took home honors. The SF Weekly's Joe Eskenazi won the Explanatory Journalism (print, non-daily) award for "Service with a Snarl," a piece that "examines, with clarity and humor, the laws around the use of service animals in San Francisco." Kathleen Richards of the East Bay Express won the Investigative Journalism (print, non-daily) award for "Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0," which the judges say is "a strong example of consumer-affairs reporting." And the staff of the North Coast Journal won the Student Special Project award for "Meltdown," a project the paper undertook with students from Humboldt State University's Investigative Reporting Class.

Continue ReadingThree AAN Members Win Northern California SPJ Awards