The non-profit Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information presented its annual open government awards to two journalists, a police chief, a state senator, and an FOI Commission employee. CCFOI has advocated for the freedom of information for the past six decades. The awards were given out at the Hartford Club on June 18.
One of two Champion of Open Government awards went to reporter Hugh McQuaid of the CTNewsjunkie for his “nuanced, straightforward, fair, insightful and alert” coverage on the governors task force on Victim Privacy and the People’s Right to Know, and the debates over the issue in the General Assembly.
The second Champion of Government award went to Thomas Hennick, public information officer of the FOI Commission. “If a good measure of the FOIC’s practical success in opening up documents and meetings can be attributed to enlightenment and persuasion – and it can – then Tom Hennick is the chief enlightenment officer, the persuader-in-chief,” said Claude Albert of CCFOI in presenting the award.
South Windsor Police Chief Matt Reed was presented the Bice Clemow Award for committing to give the public as much information as possible about crime in his community.
State Sen. Edward Meyers received the Champion of Open Government Award for consistently voting for transparency in government and the people’s right to know. He was one of only two senators to vote against making secret crime scene photos and emergency phone calls after the Sandy Hook school shooting.
Blogger, columnist, newspaper editor and author Andy Thibault received the Stephen A. Collins Award for his pursuit on virtually every FOI battlefront in the past year. Thibault was instrumental in ensuring that the clemency hearing of convicted murderer Bonnie Foreshaw proceeded in public.
CCFOI re-elected its officers for another year: retired newspaper editor James H. Smith, president; retired TV news director Dick Ahles, vice president; retired Danbury News-Times Editorial Page Editor Marry Connolly, secretary; WSHU General Manager George Lombardi, treasurer; retired Hartford Courant Managing Editor G. Claude Albert, legislative chair.
