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Guest Column: Tell the stories behind the statistics
Arkansas Press Association
Publisher Weekly
By Jim Pumarlo
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APA Virtual Convention Schedule
Vol. 15 | No. 34 | Thursday, August 21, 2020 | Serving Press and State Since 1873
Flowers to receive Freedom of Information award Press Association Freedom of Information Award. Flowers will be recognized during a virtual awards ceremony during the APA’s annual convention, which will be held online this year on Sept. 24 and Sept. 25. A three-term state representative, Flowers filed the bill that would become Act 1028 after a constituent raised concerns to her about inaccuracies in the meeting minutes of one local governmental entity. Minutes are extremely formal documents may describe in a few words what government leaders took two hours to debate, not to mention that sometimes important comments get cut from minutes entirely, Flowers said. Recordings would contain the entirety of the meeting along with nuance and context that minutes would lack, she said, adding that equipment or maintenance costs shouldn’t be a factor.
Rep. Vivian Flowers (left) speaks on the floor of the Arkansas House of Representatives during a legislative session. Pictured with Rep. Flowers is Rep. Jamie Scott. Rep. Flowers is the recipient of this year’s Arkansas Press Association Freedom of Information Award.
When the Arkansas General Assembly established the Freedom of Information Act in 1967, it made government more accessible than it had ever been. Some 52 years later, with technological improvements at every turn, Rep. Vivian Flowers argued there was at least one way to grant even greater accessibility to citizens and journalists for decades to come. Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, was the lead
sponsor of legislation last year to amend the Freedom of Information Act to require governing bodies to maintain audio recordings of all their meetings. Flowers’s bill, Act 1028 of 2019, is one of few substantive improvements to the FOIA in recent years when legislators most often have tried to claw back transparency provisions in the bill. For her work to make government more accessible and to strengthen the Arkansas FOIA, Flowers is this year’s recipient of the Arkansas
“Things are just so accessible now,” she said. “Friends, family and employees are expected to be available because they know you have a smart phone, but we’re not making our government nearly as accessible. “Hearing audio and seeing video makes the experience of getting to know people in leadership much more honest, much more personal and much more specific than reading one page of notes.” Flowers introduced the legislation during the final days of the 2019 legislative session. The bill gained bipartisan support and had 18 co-sponsors, including as Flowers noted, “both arch conservatives and arch liberals.” Continued on Page 3