Web site: 8,568 pages viewed

VCOG's Web site averaged nearly 200 daily visitors in June.

Page views totaled more than 8,500 in the same month, with a number of visitors from outside the U.S.

Among the most popular pages are those featuring the text of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, an overview of the act, and an archive of FOIA opinions.

http://www.opengovva.org

N.C., Tenn. forming open-government groups

New open-government coalitions are forming in Tennessee and North Carolina, with support from VCOG and the National Freedom of Information Coalition.

Frosty Landon recently keynoted an organizational meeting in North Carolina. More than 50 representatives of journalism, government and public-interest groups attended.

Organizers of the Tennessee coalition were hosts for the annual NFOIC conference, held in Nashville in May.

Thirty six states now have open-government groups.

Meet VCOG's intern

The Coalition is fortunate to have the help this summer of a University of Virginia rising fourth-year student, Alison Ferland, as our Laurence E. Richardson Legal Fellow.

The fellowship is named after one of the Coalition's founding members, Larry Richardson of Charlottesville Broadcasting, who died in 1999. The endowment for the fellowship was a gift from Richardson's widow, Catharine, who passed away in June.

Alison came highly recommended from the Thomas Jefferson Center, where she volunteered last summer. She is majoring in politics at UVA, with an American government concentration, and is minoring in sociology. She took the LSATs in June and hopes to attend law school in the Fall of 2004.

Alison graduated high school in Gainesville, Fla., but now lives in Palmyra. She is heavily involved in volunteer work tutoring elementary school students, assisting families who have children with cerebral palsy and lending support to victims of domestic abuse.

U. of South Carolina hires Dr. Shirley S. Carter

Shirley Staples Carter, a founding director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, recently was named director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of South Carolina.

Dr. Carter served on the VCOG board while director of the mass communications department at Norfolk State University.

More recently, she directed the journalism program at Wichita State.

Ham Smith honored

Washington and Lee University's Hampden H. "Ham" Smith III recently was given the George Mason Award for outstanding contributions to Virginia journalism.

Smith, chair of Washington & Lee's Department of Journalism and Mass Communication since 1989, was honored last month by the Virginia chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Smith is a member of the Coalition's board of directors.