Mississippi papers, AP and FOI center team up again to fight government secrecy in the state

The Associated Press, the Mississippi Press Association and the Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information have renewed their joint effort for open government in Mississippi, starting a week-long series of articles "on the pervasiveness of secrecy in our state and local governments," as MPA Executive Director Layne Bruce put it in a message to members.

"Secrecy in Mississippi" began today with an overview by AP writer Emily Wagster Pettus, who writes, "Mississippians pay for all levels of government, but that doesn't mean they can always count on public employees to promptly answer their requests for information, or that they'll get to see elected officials conduct all their business out in the open. Despite open meetings and public records laws that are decades old, this is still a state with a culture of secrecy, from the top down."

Pettus gives examples, from Gov. Haley Barbour's largely secret schedule to the refusal of "lower-level employees of sheriff's departments and police departments" to give out information over the telephone." And then there's the bugaboo of public agencies everywhere, closed sessions of boards that delve into topics that aren't supposed to be discussed in secret. (Read more)

AP, MPA and MCFI did a series in 2007 that resulted in improvements in open-government laws, but this package appears to focus on the difference in law and reality. Today's sidebar is by Tim Kalich, editor and publisher of the Grenwood Commonwealth, about secrecy at Mississippi Valley State University. For the story budget for the rest of the series, click here.