SFR Wins Open Government Award

The Foundation for Open Government announced the Santa Fe Reporter was among five recipients of the Albuquerque-based nonprofit's William S. Dixon First Amendment Freedom Award.

SFR shares the journalism award with the deputy director of New Mexico In Depth, an online journalism nonprofit, Heath Haussamen.

The award, a news release states, honors FOG co-founder, the late William S. Dixon. He was "an attorney and leading defender of the First Amendment and public rights" under New Mexico's freedom of information laws, states the release.

SFR has recently focused its reporting on a number of transparency issues, from the newspaper's trouble with obtaining public records to the the controversy surrounding private emails that leaked from campaign accounts of members of Gov. Susana Martinez' administration. SFR was the only organization to publish those emails in full for the public to inspect. Click here to read some of SFR's closed government reporting from 2012.

Other recipients of the award are:

-Recently retired Santa Fe New Mexican editor Rob Dean for lifetime achievement

-Patrick Griebel and Jeremy Theoret, "attorneys who fought and won the rights of the public to know the truth about Billy the Kid's death."

-Dr. William Turner, "for his fight to open the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District organization to the public."

"These individuals, and one newspaper, have fought for the public's right to know and for government transparency in New Mexico," FOG Executive Director, Terry Schleder, said in a news release. "Innovations in how we access our public documents and history come very fast today, and there are plenty of people who pay lip service to openness in government. But very few people will truly make history come alive—in court or on the page—to protect the public's right to know what their government is doing, or has done, on their behalf."

Santa Fe Reporter