WARNING – conflict of interest coming up! I’m about to plug a book that Charles Davis and I came out with this week. But I think it might be of interest to people who read this blog. It’s called “The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records,” by CQ Press (a division of Sage, $21.95, paperback, 236 pages, http://www.cqpress.com/product/Art-of-Access-Strategies.html).

We really loved doing this book, interviewing more than 70 experts (Woodward/Bernstein, Helen Thomas, Brant Houston, Steve Doig, Pete Weitzel, the new federal FOIA ombudsman, etc.) and pooling together our experience and knowledge of practical tips for acquiring public records. All that stuff we teach in our classes, in SPJ training sessions, and talk about with reporters daily. We hope it will help others to get fired up about access and be more effective in getting what they need. We have chapters on learning the law, finding records, effective requests, overcoming denials, dealing with data, understanding officials’ perspectives, and writing about FOI and FOI ethics. We think it can be a good supplementary textbook for reporting courses, or a deskguide for working journalists. We hope it can help citizens and others, too. Check out a companion blog for the book at www.theartofaccess.com.

We don’t plan to make a killing on the book – it’s not about the money ($1 each per book). But we do hope it spreads the gospel of FOI, good governance and an empowered electorate. Charles, a former SPJ FOI Committee chair, and myself (as current chair), can’t thank SPJ enough for its continued strong support of FOI issues. This organization is dedicated to good journalism – making the world a better place – and it feels good to be a part.

The American Society of News Editors is soliciting nominations for its Local FOI Heroes contest as part of this spring’s National Sunshine Week.

Anyone can nominate someone who made a difference last year fighting to make public institutions more open and accessible. This can be a citizen, blogger, journalist, or anyone who has worked hard for government transparency.

The first-place winner will be honored in Washington, D.C., at the 2010 ASNE convention April 11-14. The second- and third-place winners will receive $500 and $250, respectively.

More information, including the online nomination form, is available at: http://sunshineweek.org/

The deadline to enter is Friday, Feb. 26.

The National Freedom of Information Coalition has started its legal offense on overly secretive agencies. This week the group announced its first two cases to be litigated from its $2 million litigation fund, provided by the Knight Foundation.

One suit will fight for handwritten notes used by government officials during public meetings in Florida. The other will sue over the use of e-mails by officials to skirt the sunshine law in Florida. See the NFOIC press release and Knight FOI fund for more information.

If you have an issue in your state that needs legal resolution, check out the Knight fund and see if it  can help. This is particularly helpful if agencies are flagrantly violating the law or if the law is fuzzy and needs a little clarification by the courts.

Check out today’s great article by The New York Times outlining the battle Bloomberg News has waged to show the American people where its bailout money has gone.

Every journalist should read this and then follow their lead, challenging traditions of secrecy and efforts of corporations to hide their exploitation of taxpayers. That’s what journalism is all about.

Claire O’Brien, a reporter for the Dodge City Globe in Kansas, could be forced to reveal her confidential source and provide her notes after the Kansas Supreme Court this week rejected her appeal for a hearing and denied anyone (such as SPJ) from submitting friend-of-the-court amicus briefs.

O’Brien conducted a jail-house interview with a murder suspect, and the prosecutor wants all her notes and the identity of other sources included in her stories. She doesn’t have anything that will help the prosecutor, but she might go to jail if she stands up for her sources.

This is why Kansas needs a shield law. And it’s another example of why we need shield protection in every state (the 15 that don’t have it) and at the federal level.