Tony Mauro is Supreme Court correspondent for National Law Journal, ALM Media, and law.com. He has covered the Supreme Court since 1979, first for Gannett News Service and USA Today and then, since January 2000, for Legal Times, which merged with its sibling publication the National Law Journal in 2009. Mauro is also a legal correspondent for the First Amendment Center.

Mauro received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Rutgers University, and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

In March 2001 and November 2005, Washingtonian magazine included Mauro on its list of the top 50 journalists in Washington. He is the author of Illustrated Great Decisions of the Supreme Court, published in its second edition in December 2005 by Congressional Quarterly Press. He also has written several law review articles and contributed chapters to several books. The most recent is A Good Quarrel: America’s Top Legal Reporters Share Stories from Inside the Supreme Court, published in April 2009 by the University of Michigan Press.

During his more than 30 years of covering the Supreme Court, Mauro has been an active and devoted advocate for freedom of the press and freedom of information. He has written numerous stories, op-ed columns, journal articles and book chapters aimed at promoting camera and broadcast access to the courts. He also has spoken out in favor of shield laws and other protections for the public right to know.

Mauro has long encouraged fellow journalists to support openness and freedom of the press. If journalists don’t press the case for access and press freedom, he says, no one else will. In 1990, columnist Nat Hentoff wrote, “Of all Supreme Court reporters, Tony Mauro has been the most determined to persuade the justices to let television cameras in for oral arguments.” Hentoff reiterated his praise in a column 20 years later.

Mauro is past chair of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and has served on its steering committee since 1982. He was Freedom of Information chair of the Society of Professional Journalists in the 1980s and edited its annual FOI report, which then was a stand-alone publication. He received the society’s First Amendment Award in 1986. Mauro also serves on the advisory board of the World Press Freedom Committee, and is a former chair of the Freedom of Information committee of the National Press Club. He is also on the advisory board for Georgetown University Law Center’s Master of Studies in Law program for journalists.

Sean Moulton has worked on information policy at OMB Watch since early 2002, with special attention on environmental information and right-to-know issues. Moulton’s recent priorities have included directing a two-year project to collaboratively develop government transparency recommendations for the Obama administration with input from more than 100 groups from across the political spectrum. The report, Moving Toward a 21st Century Right-to-Know Agenda, has been used by some government officials as a “blueprint” on transparency.

Moulton also oversaw the development of FedSpending.org, a groundbreaking website that opens trillions of dollars in federal spending to public searches. The site has become a major resource for journalists and policymakers and facilitated more than 10 million searches in first two years. The website was at the forefront of the recent transformation of online government spending transparency. Following the 9/11 attacks, agencies frantically pulled tremendous amounts of information off websites. Moulton coordinated a government-wide FOIA campaign to identify the records removed by each agency and to urge the restoration of many documents.

Before joining OMB Watch, Moulton served as the tax-policy analyst at Friends of the Earth. His work experience also includes several years as a research fellow with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the Industry Sector Policy Division and as environmental researcher and data manager for the Council on Economic Priorities.

David C. Vladeck, currently on leave from Georgetown Law to serve as the director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, has spent much of his 35-year career as a lawyer seeking to promote transparency in government. As director of the Freedom of Information Clearinghouse and later director of Public Citizen Litigation Group, he handled or supervised more than 70 cases brought under the federal Freedom of Information Act, seeking access to a broad range of information on issues such as CIA experimentation on unwitting subjects; drug, medical-device, food and automotive safety; the wartime record of former Austrian President Kurt Waldheim; the intervention of the Office of Management and Budget in agency rule-making; and environmental protection.

Vladeck also handled many cases seeking to enforce the open-meetings provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the Sunshine Act. He also helped pioneer the use of unsealing motions to force disclosure of historically sensitive grand jury records, for example, successfully petitioning for the release of the proceedings of the grand jury that indicted Alger Hiss and supervising the filing of a petition to unseal the grand jury proceedings that lead to the indictment of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. At Georgetown Law, Vladeck continued an active FOIA and open-records practice, handling, among others, cases to force the Defense Department to release evidence of environmental contamination at military facilities, the Federal Reserve Bank to release records relating to compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act, and the Agriculture Department to release records of meetings between senior agency officials and industry.

Vladeck also brought the first case in which a federal appeals court held that state laws limiting access to public records to “citizens” of the state violated the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV of the U.S. Constitution (Lee v. Minner). In addition, he writes extensively on open- records issues.

Anne Weismann currently acts as outside litigation counsel for non-profit organizations and individuals seeking to bring greater accountability to the federal government. She also co-teaches a FOIA clinic at George Washington University Law School.

Previously, she served as Chief Counsel and Chief FOIA Counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a non-profit organization committed to identifying, analyzing, and deterring unethical government conduct. On behalf of CREW, Weismann has handled a wide range of high-profile litigation from lawsuits seeking public access to White House visitor records and opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel to a lawsuit seeking to compel President Trump to comply with his recordkeeping obligations under the Presidential Records Act. She previously served as the Executive Director of Campaign for Accountability, a non-profit organization that uses research, litigation, and communication to hold those who act at the expense of the public accountability for their actions. 

Before entering the non-profit arena, Weisman served as the Deputy Chief of the Enforcement Bureau for the Federal Communications Commission and as an Assistant Branch Director at the Department of Justice, where she oversaw the Department’s government information litigation.

Weismann has received numerous honors for her transparency work, is a frequent lecturer on transparency and ethics issues, and has testified numerous times before Congress on transparency issues.  She received her B.A. Magna Cum Laude from Brown University and her J.D. from George Washington Law School.

(Updated April 2025)

Former Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander is an award-winning journalist and news industry leader who has been a reporter, editor and Washington bureau chief during a career that spans five decades.

                He has reported from more than 50 countries and won or shared in prizes for distinguished Washington correspondence and investigative journalism.

                As a strong open government advocate, he has written and spoken extensively about the public’s right to know. He helped launch the national Sunshine Week initiative, which each year focuses public attention on freedom of information and the dangers of excessive government secrecy.

                Mr. Alexander grew up in a small town in western Ohio and graduated with a journalism degree from Ohio University. He started reporting while still in college, working summers in Australia for the Melbourne Herald. Also, before graduating, he spent a summer as a correspondent covering the war in Vietnam and covered the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.

                Before joining The Washington Post in early 2009, he had a Cox paper in Dayton, Ohio, and in 1976 was transferred to the Cox Newspapers Washington Bureau, where he covered Congress and politics. After reporting from the nation’s capital and extended overseas assignments, he moved into editing roles beginning in the late 1980s, first as foreign editor and then as deputy chief in the Cox bureau.

                In 1997, he was named bureau chief, overseeing a Washington staff and foreign bureaus in London, Jerusalem, Beijing, Moscow, Mexico City, Baghdad and the Caribbean, as well as domestic bureaus in New York and on the West Coast. During his time as chief, the Cox Washington bureau shared in the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.

                Mr. Alexander has served on numerous boards related to journalism.

                After several terms on the board of the American Society of News Editors, he served as a board member of the American Society of News Editors Foundation, including a three-year term as its president.

                He was a longtime board member of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which helps foreign journalists who have been subjected to attacks, arrests and harassment by repressive regimes. He served on CPJ’s Executive Committee and chaired its Development Committee during a period of unprecedented growth.

                In addition, Mr. Alexander is a member and past officer of the Gridiron Club, Washington’s oldest and most prestigious organization of journalists.

                He also has served on the board of the National Press Club.

                And he is a member of the advisory council for the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University, which has awarded him its Medal of Merit as a distinguished alumnus. In 2011, he was inducted into the Scripps College of Communication Hall of Fame, which recognizes lifetime achievement, and also was named Ohio University’s Alumnus of the Year.

                In 2013, he received an honorary doctorate of communication from Ohio University and was its undergraduate commencement speaker.

                He is now serving his third term on the Accrediting Committee of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.

                Mr. Alexander currently is a Visiting Professional with the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University, where he has taught journalism ethics and helped foster media innovation and entrepreneurship. He also co-chaired the Scripps College of Communication Washington program.

                He is married to Beverly Jones, an attorney, consultant and author. They live in Washington, D.C. and Rappahannock County, Virginia, where Mr. Alexander chairs Foothills Forum, an innovative and thriving nonprofit that produces award-winning, locally focused in-depth journalism.

                (Updated April 2025)

Gary Bass is the founder and executive director of OMB Watch, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization founded in 1983. Bass has testified before Congress, appeared on national television, addressed groups across the country and written extensively on information policy.

He helped lead efforts to implement the first law to mandate online access to government information in 1986, and in 1989 he created RTK NET (the Right-to-Know Network), a free online service that provides the public with access to environmental and health data.

In the early 1990s, Bass organized a public-interest group whose work led to the creation of FirstGov.gov, a Web portal to government information. He also advocated for legislative solutions to advance access to government information. As secrecy has escalated since 2001, Bass has brought together diverse constituencies, including advocates and members of the news media, helping them find common ground. The result was the formation of OpenTheGovernment.org, a broad-based coalition advocating for less secrecy and more democracy. He co-chairs that coalition today.

Danielle Brian has served as the executive director and president of the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) since 1993. Under her leadership, the organization has grown from two employees and a budget in the thousands of dollars in 1993 to an organization with a staff of fifty and a budget of eight million.

Danielle has testified before Congress over 40 times and appears in major national news outlets, including ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, USA TODAY and National Public Radio.

In the past decade, POGO’s work has resulted in

• the passage of major reforms including the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, the Freedom of Information Reform Act, and the Inspectors General Enhancement Act;
• exposing and resolving conflicts of interest at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of the Interior, and the Food and Drug Administration;
• saving the Office of Congressional Ethics and preventing the gutting of the Congressional Budget Office;
• eliminating the Pentagon’s wasteful Overseas Contingency Operations account;
• the passage of a new oversight rule that will make thousands more human organs available for transplant; and
• training over 40% of congressional committee staff on how to effectively use their oversight powers.

Under her watch, POGO prevailed in a lawsuit against then-Attorney General John Ashcroft for retroactively classifying FBI documents; forced the government to apply environmental standards to the super-secret Area 51 facility; forced the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to back down on its excessive secrecy regarding lax security at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant outside New York City; and has advocated for the rights of whistleblowers and other dissenters to have their voices heard.

POGO’s investigative work under her stewardship has received journalism awards such as the Sigma Delta Chi award, the Robert D.G. Lewis Watchdog Award, the Dateline Award, and the Reed Award for Best Civic Engagement Education Resource, as well as awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, the Association for Business Journalists, and others. POGO has received the highest reviews for organizational and financial performance from the three largest charity evaluators in the country: Charity Navigator, Better Business Bureau, and GreatNonprofits.org.

Danielle has been named by Washingtonian magazine as one of the most influential people shaping good government policy; has been recognized by the National Journal as one of the top 50 people changing the game in Washington, receiving top rankings for her impact and innovation in the field of political activism.

Before becoming executive director, Brian worked as a producer for television documentaries, as a policy analyst at the Arms Control and Foreign Policy Congressional Caucus, and as a research associate at POGO.

Danielle received her bachelor’s degree in government from Smith College, and her master’s degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in 1990. In 2010, she was awarded the Smith College Medal, an award for alumnae who exemplify the true purpose of a liberal arts education.

                (Updated April 2025)

David Burnham — a writer, investigative reporter and researcher — was the co-founder and co-director of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse and an associate research professor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

TRAC, a data-gathering and distribution organization associated with the university, began operating in 1989. Concrete government information, much of its obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, has been central to Burnham’s work as both a reporter and a researcher.

He started as a reporter in 1958, working for UPI, Newsweek, CBS News and other organizations. From 1968 to 1986, he was an investigative reporter with The New York Times in New York and Washington. He has written three books and numerous magazine articles. His most recent book, Above the Law: Secret Deals, Political Fixes, and Other Misadventures of the U.S. Department of Justice, was published in January 1996 by Scribner. His investigative book on the Internal Revenue Service — A Law Unto Itself: Power, Politics and the IRS — was published in 1990 by Random House. A third book, The Rise of the Computer State, was published in 1984.

Over the years, Burnham has received a number of professional honors, including the George Polk Award for Community Service, Long Island University, 1968; the Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship, 1987; the Best Investigative Book of 1990, Investigative Reporters and Editors, 1990; and the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, Bellagio, Italy, 1992. In 2003, he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in Humane Letters from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Burnham died in 2024.

(Updated April 2025)

Hodding Carter III, a well-known print and broadcast journalist and high official in the Carter administration, was president and CEO of the Knight Foundation from February 1998 until his retirement in July 2005. He is now on faculty as University Professor of leadership and public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Under his leadership, the Knight Foundation made $15 million in grants in recent years to further freedom-of-information projects and initiatives. Recipients included the National Freedom of Information Coalition, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the National Security Archive, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Radio-Television News Directors Association and several investigative reporters groups, including Investigative Reporters and Editors. The foundation also has funded Sunshine Week, now in its second year.

Carter held the Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of Maryland College of Journalism and from 1965-66 he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. He worked on two presidential campaigns for Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter. In January 1977, Carter became spokesman of the Department of State and Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, serving until 1980. He then launched a career in television, and has since served as host, anchor, panelist, correspondent and reporter for a variety of public-affairs television shows.

Carter’s father was a newspaper publisher and editor in the South whose editorials on racial and religious tolerance for the family-owned Greenville, Miss., Delta Democrat-Times won the Pulitzer Prize in 1946. Hodding Carter III graduated summa cum laude in June 1957 with a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University. After serving in the military, he returned to Greenville in 1959, where he spent nearly 18 years as reporter-editorial writer, managing editor and editor and associate publisher of the Delta Democrat-Times.

He has written two books, The Reagan Years and The South Strikes Back.