The Associated Press – A Report on the ICD’s International Freedom of Expression Forum

The Associated Press - Berlin, March1st , 2012 ; Kathleen Carroll discusses the Issues of getting information Public – At a recent ICD conference Kathleen Carroll spoke of the difficulties we as citizen’s face when trying to extract information from out governments. Accepting that all governments keep secrets and that a small number of these secrets are worth keeping, however Mrs Carroll was critical of a governments which she deemed too keep too much information out of the public sphere.

  March 01st, 2012

Bulgaria deputy economy minister meets with head of Berlin’s Institute for Cultural Diplomacy

The Associated Press – March 1st, 2012 

Associated Press Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll today cited AP’s global test of transparency laws in describing to a Berlin forum on freedom of expression the challenges of getting public information for the public.

“It doesn’t matter what kind of system governs a nation, that system values and keeps a lot of secrets,” Carroll said at the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy’s International Freedom of Expression Forum.

In 2011, Associated Press journalists around the world conducted the first ever test of those transparency laws. “We asked the same questions of the European Union and the 105 nations with open records laws,” Carroll said. “And about half of the nations that mandate public disclosure had this answer: ‘It’s none of your business.’ ”

Read the full text of Carroll’s remarks.

See details about the first-ever worldwide test of freedom of information.

About The AP
The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. Founded in 1846, AP today is the largest and most trusted source of independent news and information. On any given day, more than half the world’s population sees news from AP. On the Net: www.ap.org