Open Access: Citizens, Media & Government

 Huge loads of oil-processing equipment began rumbling through downtown Moscow over the summer, trundling up Highway 95 bound for Canada. And every night, dozens of protesters lined the route, shouting, singing and sometimes sitting down in front of trucks.

“Public protest is enshrined in our Constitution in the First Amendment rights of assembly and petition and is one of the ways citizens ensure access to government decision-making,” said Dinah Zeiger, assistant professor of Journalism and Mass Media at the University of Idaho. “It’s one way the people hold government accountable for its actions.”

The university’s School of Journalism and Mass Media hosted a one-day symposium on “Open Access: Citizens, Media & Government,” that explored public access to official records and the decision-making processes.

Events included:

The showing of the documentary “Fighting Goliath: Megaloads & the Power of Protest.”
The film by Hans Guske and Ilya Pinchuck, seniors in the university’s School of Journalism and Mass Media, chronicled the efforts of Idaho residents Borg Hendrickson and Linwood Laughy, who won the Idaho Newspaper Foundation’s 2011 Max Dalton Open Government Award. They sued the Idaho Transportation Department to stop “rolling roadblocks” of oil-processing equipment moving up Highway 12 from the Port of Lewiston to Billings, Mont., enroute to the Kearl Oil Sands in Canada.

A Post-film Panel Discussion. 
Panel participants included Hendrickson, Laughy, William Spence, reporter for the Lewiston Tribune and Betsy Russell, the Boise bureau chief for The Spokesman-Review. Steve Smith, former editor of The Spokesman-Review, is panel moderator. 

A Lecture entitled “Open Government: Why It Matters,” delivered by Betsy Russell, Boise bureau chief for The Spokesman-Review.