Shell games and FOIA, IL

From Illinois Times:

Thank goodness for the government.

That was the way that Silly Pretend Journalists, aka the Society of Professional Journalists, saw things eight years ago when they bestowed attorney general Lisa Madigan with the coveted Sunshine Award, akin to an Oscar from a group of navel gazers that purports to be a watchdog for the public interest.

Madigan’s trophy, still trumpeted on the attorney general’s publicly funded website, was given not because she had done anything. Rather, she made an election-year vow back in 2003 to overhaul the state’s abysmal public-records law and reverse a culture of secrecy that permeated every level of government in Illinois from the lowliest mosquito-abatement district to the governor’s office. Let the sunshine in!