I spent the day at the Freedom of Information/Investigative Reporting conference at the Boston Globe.

There are resources available at BU and North Eastern if the JP Gazette wants to fight this.

Here's a link to the conference sponsors.

http://neu.edu/firstamendment/

Those of us there heard aspects of this problem that we knew deep inside but were perhaps afraid to think about. Without mainstream media outlets to fight these -- sometimes expensive -- battles for access and freedom of information, we'll have more elected and appointed officials keeping the people's information secret.

I'm on a different advisory committee, elsewhere in MA, and it has been impressed upon on us (if I understand correctly) that we're subject to open meeting laws.

The main practical impact of this is that we have to wait for official meetings to discuss issues, rather than being able to discuss on an email list in between meetings, solely in the interests of being open. Reporters have attended our meetings, and that's never been a problem, as far as I know; the more public awareness, the better.

I have no idea what problem the Jackson Square CAC sees with journalists.

I did just find some useful information at:

http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/openmeeting.html

I'm not qualified to interpret the law, but the "Open Meeting Law Guidelines" document linked from that page, issued by AG Coakley's office a year ago includes this fairly accessible example (page 6):

Example: A local housing authority appoints a special committee composed of private citizens, representatives of the local planning board, the local conservation commission and interested tenant groups to study and make recommendations to the authority on the design,placement, and tenant selection criteria for a low and moderate income housing project the authority is building. Since all the matters which have been delegated to the special committee are matters of public business and policy within the housing authority's jurisdiction and responsibility, the special committee itself is a governmental body and subject to the Law.

I suppose one question would be whether the committee is appointed by a government authority.