Monday, March 13, 2006

As part of its special Sunshine Week package, the San Jose Mercury News has drafted a model sunshine ordinance for the city of San Jose, CA.

Executive Editor Susan Goldberg told E-Media Tidbits that the purpose of publishing this draft is to "to get the conversation started around town."

The state of California already has a sunshine law, the California Public Records Act, as well as an open meetings law, the Brown Act. Several California cities, including San Franscico and Oakland, already have passed municipal sunshine laws.

In her A1 editorial on Sunday, March 12, Goldberg noted that municipal sunshine laws "help prevent ...secrecy by closing loopholes in the state's Public Records Act and Brown Act, creating stricter provisions for notifying residents of meetings and more explicit criteria for what information must be released and when."

One way to enhance the public discussion of this legislation might be to allow online comments for specific sections of the legislation -- that is, offer a "comment on this section" link for each title and subtitle in the draft, as well as comment on the legislation as a whole. It would also be interesting to provide a feed for those comments, with links back to relevant draft sections.

Maybe it's just my own ignorance, but this is the first time I've heard of a news organization drafting model legislation and publishing it for open review and discussion. Has this been done before? Does this cross any ethical lines for a news organization? I've got an inquiry in to ASNE about that, but I'd like to hear your comments. Please comment below.

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