Today the White House released the tenth “episode” of West Wing Week, described as “your guide to everything that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.” Watch it here.

“West Wing Week” is a weekly collection of video clips, providing a look at the activities of the White House in the preceding week. In the open government world, there’s some discussion about how open this video series actually is, even in this AP article about the series:

Kathleen Jamieson, an authority on political communications at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center, says the videos allow the White House to give the impression of openness.

“That’s the value of it before you’ve ever looked at the substance,” she says.

The Washington Post also discusses it: “White House video blog offers and inside view”, discussing among other things the relationships between media and the White House, and how “West Wing Week” fits in with broader coverage of the White House:

White House officials deny that they are attempting to end-run reporters. In fact, they say such initiatives as “West Wing Week” are evidence of greater candor. “These videos are just one part of the president’s effort to have the most transparent White House in history,” said Nick Shapiro, a spokesman, who added that “West Wing Week” “is yet another way for people to get a better sense of what’s happening at the White House and why.”

Speakers addressed that question from a variety of perspectives at the Brookings Institution yesterday, as part of the event I posted about last week. Video is available from CSPAN here, in two parts – well worth watching!

If you are going to be in Washington D.C. on June 1, consider attending the event below. More details from Brookings here.

Is Government Broken? Strengthening Democracy through Election and Governance Reforms

In a recent CNN/Opinion Research survey, 86 percent of Americans said they believe the federal government is “broken.” In the last year, governance challenges complicated the nation’s capacity to address issues such as the economy, health care, climate change and financial regulation. As obstacles to governance continue to mount, what reforms need to be implemented to ensure that the United States is equipped to face its short- and long-term policy challenges? Is government broken? And if so, how do we fix it?

On June 1, the Brookings Institution, Demos, AmericaSpeaks, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University and Everyday Democracy will host a forum to explore current challenges to good governance and to discuss ways of creating and strengthening a strong, vibrant and inclusive democracy, focusing mainly on proposed solutions to reform our governance, election and campaign finance systems. The first panel will focus on how electoral and campaign finance systems can be reformed. The second discussion will center on improving institutional performance, administrative infrastructure and governance processes to better address the nation’s most pressing policy problems.

After each panel, speakers will take questions from the audience.

When

Tuesday, June 01, 2010
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Where

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

Participants

Welcome and Introductory Remarks

Miles Rapoport

President, Demos

Darrell M. West

Vice President and Director, Governance Studies

Panel on Election and Campaign Finance Reform

Eddie Hailes

Managing Director and General Counsel, Advancement Project

Clarissa Martinez De Castro

Director, Immigration and National Campaigns, National Council of La Raza

Nick Nyhart

President and CEO, Public Campaign

Norm Eisen

Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, The White House

Moderator: Karen Hobert Flynn

Vice President for State Operations, Common Cause

Panel on Governance Reform

Thomas E. Mann

Senior Fellow, Governance Studies

Martha McCoy

Executive Director, Everyday Democracy

Gary Bass

Executive Director, OMB Watch

Moderator: Archon Fung

Associate Professor, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University

Closing Remarks

Carolyn Lukensmeyer

President, AmericaSpeaks

E.J. Dionne, Jr.

Senior Fellow, Governance Studies

The Congressional Transparency Caucus recently held its inaugural event – video of the event can be found here, from the Sunlight Foundation.

The co-chairs of the caucus are Representative Darrel Issa (R-CA) and Representative Mike Quigley (D-IL). According to Rep. Quigley’s website, the caucus “will serve as a resource for Members of Congress on bipartisan open government initiatives. The caucus will promote legislation that requires federal information to be freely accessible, as well as advocate for new initiatives that support transparency.”

The principles of the Transparency Caucus can be found here (pdf).

Pew Internet and American Life Project recently published this report on government online and how Americans use government website, finding that:

“As government agencies at all levels bring their services online, Americans are turning in large numbers to government websites to access information and services. Fully 82% of internet users (representing 61% of all American adults) looked for information or completed a transaction on a government website in the twelve months preceding this survey.”

Many of these visits were information seeking or transactional (activities like paying fines, renewing a license). Both these activities are no doubt important, but there is opportunity here to capture true engagement online between citizens and government – not just a one way flow of information, but an opportunity for meaningful, two-way conversation about the policies and processes that affect people where they live and work. And, the internet can’t yet be the only focus for government interaction -  “Americans tend to interact with government using a mix of online and offline methods. Internet users prefer contacting government online, but the telephone remains a key resource for government problem-solving.”

This study also draws attention to demographic differences in the populations accessing this information – “high-income and well-educated internet users are much more likely to use government services and information online,” and there are also racial differences in accessing government online to be mindful of.

Openthegovernment.org has organized an audit of the open government plans submitted by federal agencies on April 7, and will continue to look at the plans as they evolve and are implemented.

“As this audit demonstrates, there is wide variation in the agency plans. Some are exceptional; others are quite weak. Most are somewhere in between. Many of the plans that currently do not meet the minimal requirements identified in the OGD can do so with only modest improvements, such as providing more specificity on deadlines or identifying where certain items mentioned in the plans can be found.”

The final rankings can be found here and full agency evaluations here. The highest scoring agencies are NASA, HUD, EPA, Department of Agriculture, Office of Personnel Management, Department of Transportation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Department of Labor.

Sorry for the sparse posting lately – over at AmericaSpeaks we have been busy with our latest project, AmericaSpeaks: Our Budget, Our Economy.

AmericaSpeaks: Our Budget, Our Economy is a national discussion to find common ground on tough choices about our federal budget.  Americans from across the country will come together to weigh-in on strategies to ensure a sustainable fiscal future and a strong economic recovery.  As a part of this national discussion, on June 26, 2010, thousands of Americans across the country will participate simultaneously in an unprecedented National Town Meeting.

We hope you can join the conversation on June 26, but until then we will be resuming more regular posting here on Open Government Directions.

There has been much written about the open government plans released last week, and today we’ll collect many of them here for your reading pleasure. Feel free to leave a comment pointing to other articles we missed!

To start, govfresh provides direct links to all of the plans, and also generated a word cloud.

Also from govfresh, Flagship Initiatives Shine in Open Government Plans

TechPresident: Obama Gets His Agencies’ Plans for Participation

Sunlight Foundation: What Open Government Plans Could Learn from Retail Management

GovLoop has a discussion forum about the plans: Open Gov Plans: Cheers and Jeers – Share Yours Here!

IBM Center for the Business of Government: Open Gov Plans Released, And…

And from the White House: Open Government Plans: A Tour of the Horizon and Making Government Accountable for Openness

Ellen Miller at the Sunlight Foundation just penned a post about her disappointment with the lack of new data sets that were identified in the recent slate of open government plans. It’s worth taking a look at.

Today, April 7, is the due date for agencies to release their open government plans under the Open Government Directive. Here are just a few of many places to read more about the anticipated releases:

NextGov: Agencies to unveil open government plans under president’s directive

Sunlight Foundation: Anticipating Agency Plans

OMB Watch: Open Government Day Arrives April 7