Colin Donohue

From the Fayetteville Observer (3/17/10): When it comes to public employee personnel records, North Carolina's sunshine is in full eclipse.

From the Gaston Gazette (3/16/10): Most of the time, government officials do a good job at making public records accessible. It’s the occasional exceptions that tend to stick out like a sore thumb.

From the Greenville Daily Reflector (3/14/10): North Carolina could stand to be more progressive when it attends to the right of citizens to access the actions of government. The laws that govern that interaction — the open meetings and public records statutes — are more modest than other states, and could be a contributing factor to the culture of corruption that has bloomed in recent years.

From the Fayetteville Observer (3/14/10): It started with automobile brake lights glowing before dawn last May. It ended in January with a middle school teacher going to prison.

From the Wilmington Star-News (3/12/10): When Louise Romanow went to the Wake County Courthouse to view search warrants late last month she was turned away.

Live Oak Communications, Elon's student-run, full-service communications agency, is seeking qualified applicants for the fall of 2010. Live Oak develops and executes communications programs for businesses and not-for-profit organizations in the North Carolina region.

NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg gave the Supreme Court justices a human quality on March 16 in the Carolina Theater in Greensboro, N.C., delivering the keynote address that ended the state’s annual Sunshine Day, which aims to recognize openness in government and to honor those who work to promote transparency.

The city of Greensboro has not always been viewed among journalists as the most open and accessible, but despite past transgressions, Greensboro is attempting to change and bring more sunshine to its proceedings.

How should journalists go about getting a story using public records? Is it ethical to cover the hospitalization of a public figure? And who should shield laws protect--are bloggers to be given the same rights as professional journalists?

Andy Curliss, Dick Barron and Ames Alexander will tell you some of the largest stories in journalism require open access to records so reporters can gather information.