Tolerance and the web, and transparency

The fields of news and knowledge are foundational to vital democratic society. People who enjoy access to free, fair, and high-quality news media per se become more effective citizens: they understand more about how their community works, and they’re more likely to participate in making the decisions that shape their lives.

Confronted by that sort of transparency, government, business, and other institutions necessarily become more accountable for what they do. The free flow of knowledge makes possible other forms of social change—advances in health care, wealth distribution, environmental policy. The upside is incredible.

Keith Hammonds is a member of Ashoka's new Social Entrepreneurs in Journalism program. More of the interview here.


I found this via an excellent piece that interrogates the Pew Internet 2020 scenarios. It includes the following:

Perhaps the new office of the CIO in the Obama administration may influence the development of the Internet in a manner more conducive to better race relations in the US. The technologies used could well be adapted and adopted in other countries and regions. Citizen themselves can inspire and engender political will, holding rulers accountable for their actions in ways, enabled by new media and the Internet, that hark back to the tenets of direct democracy.

Is this possible, I wonder?

Trust: this year's "X" Factor - 2

I wonder if the Interweb will feature in the thinking? Do hope so. Social networks & all that...

The Committee on Standards in Public Life today announced that the subject of its twelfth inquiry is to be ‘Local Leadership and Public Trust: Accountability and Transparency in London and Local Government’.

Announcing the inquiry, Sir Christopher Kelly, Chair of the Committee, said:

“We are keen to look at the new structures put in place at the start of the decade to see whether they have achieved their goals of promoting better leadership, greater accountability, raising standards and improving public trust. As well as looking at the Mayoral system in London, we will be looking at the other twelve directly elected Mayor models, the Cabinet system within some local councils, and the Committee structure found in others, to see how they work within the constitutional and ethical landscape.

“It seems to us that this is the right time to take a look after eight years to see how decisions are made, scrutinised and explained to people. We will want to assess how well local government structures reflect, both in theory and in practice, the Seven Principles of Public Life.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life press office.

Another Citizen's Charter Ensures Transparency

ONE VOICE - ONE VISION

Our aim is to be an effective and influential voice for the xxxxx community.

Our vision is of a dynamic and vibrant industry, operating to the highest standards of professionalism and responsibility towards our staff, xxxx, customers and local community, and within a supportive regulatory and fiscal environment.

To achieve this, we will seek to establish positive relationships with a range of key opinion formers and policy makers, as well as other trade bodies. Our policies and campaigns are developed by members, for members, to deliver real bottom line benefits.

By working together and pooling our resources, we can achieve the recognition and respect our industry deserves.

Join here.

Transparent Bail Outs

So here is the bail out bill.


Wired asked:

Doesn't transparency amount to more than just posting a bit of legislation up on a Sunday, giving the public a few hours to wonder what it says, and then rushing to approve it in congress?

In 2002 Dame Onora O'Neill, president of the British Academy, gave the Reith Lectures on "trust".

There has never been more abundant information about the individuals and institutions whose claims we have to judge. Openness and transparency are now possible on a scale of which past ages could barely dream. We are flooded with information about government departments and government policies, about public opinion and public debate, about school, hospital and university league tables. We can read facts and figures that supposedly demonstrate financial and professional accountability, cascades of rebarbative [forbidding] semi-technical detail about products and services on the market, and lavish quantities of information about the companies that produce them. At the click of a mouse those with insatiable appetites for information can find out who runs major institutions, look at the home pages and research records of individual scientists, inspect the grants policies of research councils and major charities, down-load the annual reports and the least thrilling press releases of countless minor public, professional and charitable organisations, not to mention peruse the agenda and the minutes of increasing numbers of public bodies. It seems no information about institutions and professions is too boring or too routine to remain unpublished. So if making more information about more public policies, institutions and professionals more widely and freely available is the key to building trust, we must be well on the high road towards an ever more trusting society.

This high road is built on new technologies that are ideal for achieving transparency and openness. It has become cheap and easy to spread information, indeed extraordinarily hard to prevent its spread. Secrecy was technically feasible in the days of words on paper. But it is undermined by easy, instantaneous, multiple replication-and endless possibilities for subtle or less-than-subtle revision.

These lectures are a key moment in modern definitions of trust.