The Board of Regents’ new transparency task force addressed issues of public disclosure with six members of the media, including Rick Green, editor of the Des Moines Register, Emily Busse, editor of the Daily Iowan and Dave Buiesk, news director of KCCI-TV.

The force met for the second time on Friday, May 10, 2013 at the John & Mary Pappajohn Education Center in Des Moines, IA.

The transparency task force’s charges are to recommend best practices for responding to public information requests and recommend best practices for additional access to public information of interest to Iowans.

“I’m confident we’ll come up with the recommendation that will make the process better, and hopefully, I’m sure that the media, and just Iowans in general, I think that they will be happy with what we come up with,” said Miles Lackey, the Iowa State representative on the task force.

The task force also hosted Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, who spoke on Family Education Rights and Privacy Act misconceptions.

“The single message I was most hoping to get across was that the voices of everyone involved, from the regents, to the campuses to the media, all need to be uniting and urging Congress to bring some sanity to privacy laws,” LoMonte said. “Privacy laws now are broken.”

Throughout the meeting, Iowa State was praised by the media panel for its responsiveness to news organizations. The University of Iowa, however, was criticized for its lack of cooperation by several of the panel member.

Busse said reporters sometimes get responses from Iowa State and the University of Northern Iowa before hearing back from the University of Iowa, despite The Daily Iowan being within closer proximity of the offices they have tried to get a hold of.

Discussions among the task force members over implementing a centralized public record distribution position at each of the regent universities also prevailed throughout the meeting.

“It should never be the job of a public relations professional to get between the public and the information, and I think that message was really heard today,” LoMonte said.

The task force also discussed possible changes to the way Board of Regents meetings are run, including building in time for a public open forum and allowing ample time for public feedback between meetings.

Dates for the next two meetings were set for Wednesday, June 19 and Wednesday, July 17.