By Betsy Model, President
More than forty New Mexico and El Paso, TX journalists – and a smart group of newsrooms – took advantage of David Cuillier’s workshops on Freedom of Information/FOIA this past week.
The two scheduled workshops – Albuquerque on June 9 and El Paso on June 10 – were not only well-attended but the sheer amount of information offered by Cuillier and augmented by the workshop attendees was phenomenal. Great Q&A spurred on some terrific, in-depth discussions and Cuillier blogged about not only his experiences with both groups but additional tips/tricks that came out of the discussions on his national blog; scroll a bit down the initial page to find the mentions at this link.
A group of jointly owned papers were also smart enough to nab Cuillier while he was heading south from Albuquerque to El Paso and scored one-on-one training. Cuillier made a newsroom call in Belen at the Valencia County News-Bulletin and newsroom folks from their sister papers, the El Defensor Chieftain and the Mountain View Telegraph, were also able to attend and “use” Cuillier for his insight on the FOIA process. Kudos to the papers’ publisher, David Puddu, for recognizing a great opportunity and snagging it!