The Daily Campus

Is this seriously news? You want to FOIA a student government? Face it, USG is not a state-run institution, and therefore, is not subject to C.G.S. If you want to claim that they are because they receive state tuition dollars, then maybe the Daily Campus should be FOIA'd, as well.

Isn't it a little unethical for the newspaper to print, in the news section, that USG violated FOIA? I mean, a newspaper can't just decide that for itself. A court can decide that, an FOIA commission can decide that, but a newspaper can't just decide for itself that an entity violated the law. It can think it can, but it absolutely should not print in the news section that such a violate has certainly taken place. If the Daily Campus has any journalistic integrity, I'd imagine we'll see a retraction tomorrow. The Editorial page is the only place suitable for such an allegation.

I agree with Michael that the newspaper should not state unequivocally the law WAS violated -- any more than they would state unequivocally that an arrested person was guilty.

The way to handle it is to state that USG "appears" to have violated the law and include in the story a pertinent piece of the law explaining how executive sessions may be called. It would also be appropriate to quote an FOI commission member or the director on the general rule for executive sessions, if you don't have ready access to the law. In light of the view that a student government is exempt, it wouldn't hurt to offer some support of the paper's view that USG is NOT exempt. I expect there have been cases on that or similar situations already.
Any board with a high turnover rate is prone to making errors, and Im sure the student government is not exception. I believe in CT newly elected municipal government members get FOI training -- based on early experience with considerable ignorance of the law. That would be a good idea here, too.

Most of the problem with the article is the headline and first sentence.

I hpe the CDC will try to be educational and not just accusatory.