Rick Blum

Rick Blum is the founder and CEO of Sixteenth Street Consulting LLC, which helps advocacy organizations expand and diversify support, create and sustain coalitions, and build winning strategies.

Rick has organized numerous coalitions and initiatives to protect press freedom and promote open government. For over a decade, Rick coordinated News Media for Open Government, a coalition of major news media associations promoting open government policies and practices. He led the coalition (until 2017 known as the Sunshine in Government Initiative) in its work supporting enactment of the 2007 amendments to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016. His work defending against unnecessary, overbroad or self-serving secrecy lead him to any number of topics, such as tracking space junk, the farm bill, and high-speed rail. He also helped explain to Congress how the news media keep the public informed based on unauthorized disclosures of classified information (“leaks”), addressing concerns about WikiLeaks and successfully pushing back against anti-leaks proposals in the Intelligence Authorization Act for 2013.

Blum testified numerous times before Congress on FOIA implementation and exemptions, science and disclosure, and federal legislation to shield journalists from revealing confidential sources. He helped numerous experts and news media representatives prepare for appearances before Congress on press freedom and open government topics. 

Blum was the founding director of OpenTheGovernment.org, a broad coalition of journalists, labor, and free-speech and environmental advocates. Rick served as the first policy director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, where he helped the organization define its policy work on a wide range of topics affecting newsgathering and transparency.

He holds a master’s degree from Indiana University, where his studies focused on democratization efforts in Russia, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley. 

(Updated May 2025)