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2019 Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism finalist

Open Government Guide

About the Project

The Open Government Guide is a complete compendium of compiled resources on every state’s laws on open records and open meetings – giving journalists a one-stop shop for help on gathering information. Each state’s section is arranged according to a standard outline, making it easy to compare laws across multiple states. The new version is a solution that allows users to seamlessly compare state information while at the same time giving the editors a clean and simple method of entering content. When building, the team also considered performance and accessibility – making sure the structuring of data was highly usable and the site loaded quickly no matter the device or connection speed. This resulted in a tool that allows journalists to compare laws across states as well as read all laws for a particular state with lightning speed. It’s constantly updated so that any user will have access to the latest information. Finally, the site was optimized for easy saving and printing, allowing another mode of distribution and reference.