NEWS AND EVENTS

Sunshine Seminars for Kentucky journalists

The Kentucky Press Association, the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and the Scripps Howard First Amendment Center of the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky are sponsoring two Sunshine Seminars on open meetings, open records and open courts for Kentucky journalists May 29 in Lexington and June 5 in Madisonville.

Kentucky's open-meetings and open-records laws are some of the strongest in the nation, but newspapers often don't take full advantage of them, so they miss stories that their readers need and want. These workshops will be designed to help reporters and editors at all levels improve their skills at using state and federal freedom of information laws.

The panelists will include leading experts: Jon Fleischaker of the Dinsmore & Shohl law firm, author of the state open-meetings and open-records laws; Amye Bensenhaver, the assistant attorney general who usually handles open-records and open-meetings cases; and veteran Courier-Journal Frankfort Bureau Chief Tom Loftus, who mines campaign-finance data for important stories. Presenters will also include journalists from weekly and daily newspapers, who will tell how they used freedom-of-information laws to keep government open and cover closed court proceedings. There will be plenty of time for questions and answers, and discussions of your own experiences.

Both workshops will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time. Registration is $20 per person. Registration deadline for the May 29 seminar at the Lexington Herald-Leader is Friday, May 23. Registration deadline for the June 5 seminar at the Country Cupboard Restaurant in Madisonville is Friday, May 30. Both locations include a continental breakfast at 8:30 a.m., and lunch will be provided. For a detailed program and registration form in a PDF document, click here.

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues helps non-metropolitan media define the public agenda in their communities, through strong reporting and commentary on local issues and on broader issues that have local impact. Its initial focus area is Central Appalachia, but as an arm of the University of Kentucky it has a statewide mission, and it has national scope. It has academic collaborators at Appalachian State University, East Tennessee State University, Eastern Kentucky University, Georgia College and State University, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Iowa State University, Marshall University, Middle Tennessee State University, Ohio University, Southeast Missouri State University, the University of Georgia, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the University of North Dakota, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Washington and Lee University, West Virginia University and the Knight Community Journalism Fellows program of the University of Alabama. It is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the University of Kentucky, with additional financial support from the Ford Foundation. To get notices of daily Rural Blog postings and other Institute news, click here.