FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Justin Silverman | 774.244.2365 | justin@nefac.org The New England First Amendment Coalition will honor Sarah-Ann Shaw, the late trail-blazing journalist and community advocate who mentored a generation of young reporters, with its 2024 Stephen Hamblett First Amendment Award. Named after the late publisher of The Providence Journal, the Hamblett Award is […]

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Register Now for New Round of FOI Lessons The New England First Amendment Coalition is continuing its freedom of information lessons with new classes on remote and hybrid access to government meetings. The lessons build on the information provided in NEFAC’s growing library of open meeting law classes which can be viewed here. They will be […]

FOI Guide Home Connecticut | Maine | Massachusetts | New Hampshire | Rhode Island | Vermont | Federal FOIA (Last updated July 2, 2024) The public faces several barriers to accessing police misconduct records in Rhode Island. Although legislators recently reformed the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights to allow greater transparency in misconduct cases, […]

FOI Guide Home Connecticut | Maine | Massachusetts | New Hampshire | Rhode Island | Vermont | Federal FOIA (Last updated May 22, 2024) Where can the law be found? Rhode Island’s Open Meetings law is found at Chapter 46 of Title 42 of the General Laws of Rhode Island. Section 1 of the law […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Justin Silverman | 774.244.2365 | justin@nefac.org The New England First Amendment Coalition is seeking nominations for its 2024 Michael Donoghue Freedom of Information Award. The FOI Award is given each year to a New England journalist or team of journalists for a body of work from the previous calendar year that […]

FOI Guide Home Connecticut | Maine | Massachusetts | New Hampshire | Rhode Island | Vermont | Federal FOIA (Last updated April 4, 2024) ​Police misconduct records are rarely covered by exemptions in the Connection Freedom of Information Act. These records typically do not involve documents compiled during the detection or investigation of crime, which […]

By Justin Silverman Open government mattered to all of us during the height of the COVID pandemic. Government played an outsized role in our day-to-day lives then. Schools closed, storefronts shuttered and the officials making decisions about quarantines, mask mandates and vaccines often met in secret or exclusively online. We demanded access to their Zoom […]

The goal of Sunshine Week — March 10-16 this year with related events occurring throughout the month — is to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public’s right to know. Here’s a look at how […]

By Josh Moore and Justin Silverman When student journalists at Amherst Regional High School in Massachusetts heard last spring that middle schoolers in their town were experiencing transphobic and homophobic bullying, they immediately got to work. The students asked hard questions of administrators and conducted sensitive interviews with victims. With the help of their journalism […]