The Virginia Coalition for Open Government awarded CBS 6 investigative reporter Tyler Layne with its Laurence E. Richardson Citizen Award for Open Government. The organization distributed the following press release:
The Virginia Coalition for Open Government is announcing today, the second day of Sunshine Week, that the 2024 Laurence E. Richardson Citizen Award for Open Government will go to Alice Minium, and its media award winner is Tyler Layne of WTVR-TV.
Minium is a co-founder of OpenOversightVA, an organization dedicated to collecting data on Virginia law enforcement officers. She relies heavily on public records she obtains through FOIA, though this quest for basic information like salary data and rosters has been costly and has not always gone smoothly. Some law enforcement departments have employed inventive interpretations of FOIA to either reject her requests or redact crucial information.
Minium and her attorney are currently appealing a judge’s ruling in Hanover County that allowed the sheriff to redact the names of hundreds of officers from a payroll spreadsheet on the theory that the officers might one day be needed for undercover operations.
“To file a case against a law enforcement agency in support of increased transparency, despite the anticipated pressure of criticism and backlash, is impressive and was noticed by many,” said a member of VCOG’s Programming Committee, who reviewed this year’s nominations and made unanimous recommendations.
Layne, a reporter for WTVR-TV in Richmond, has used FOIA to inform and bolster his coverage of several high-profile stories in Richmond. He chronicled the city's reluctance to disclose the inspection reports of a tree that fell on and caused the death of a park worker.
He challenged the school district’s refusal to turn over an external report detailing the events leading up to the shooting deaths of two individuals outside the Altria Theater after a high school graduation ceremony. Layne was a named party in the lawsuit that eventually pried that report loose.
Skillfully incorporating details about the FOIA process into his stories, Layne ensures that the impact of this open government law is easily relatable to his audience.
“Tyler knows how to keep the focus on people while using FOIA to add factual authority to the story,” said another member of the Programming Committee.
VCOG will recognize Minium and Layne at its annual conference, on April 18, in Yorktown.
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