Absolutely.

This year's Knight Open Government Survey, done by George Washington University's  National Security Archive,  found that only 13 of 90 surveyed federal agencies have made any concrete changes to their Freedom of Information practices even though the president directed them to do so a year ago.

The day after the survey story appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere, the White House chief of staff and the counsel to the president wrote a memo to the agency heads noting "more work remains" and asking them to "take action" to ensure "full implementation" of President Obama's Jan. 21 2009 memo.

Other highlights:

This year's presidential statement marking Sunshine Week, citing the progress since last year.

The Scripps Poll, showing that 70 percent of U.S. adults believe the federal government is secretive.

Headlines from around the country marking the week.

Sunshine Week started in 2005 as a project of the American Society of News Editors along with dozens of other groups, with funding from Knight Foundation.   The foundation later endowed the annual event, which promotes the importance of open government and freedom of information.

-- By Eric Newton, Knight Foundation Vice President

Last summer, the National Freedom of Information Coalition conducted an online survey to test whether the economic crisis and changes in the media industry had affected efforts to push for more open government. The results were conclusive: 60 percent of the respondents said that traditional media support for open government lawsuits in their states had fallen dramatically. Eighty-five percent of the respondents said they expected these lawsuits to become even rarer in the next three years.

Meanwhile, more than half of the respondents to a follow-up study said that open government violations had gone up in the past few years. And the NFOIC found that many media organizations were too under-resourced to even get their lawyers to contact government officials in protest.

Today, Knight Foundation announced a $2 million grant to the NFOIC to create the Knight FOI Fund:

The Knight FOI Fund will provide up-front costs such as court costs, filing and deposition fees, if attorneys are willing to take on a pro-bono basis cases that otherwise would go unfiled.

“Media companies have for generations taken on the lion’s share of the legal work surrounding freedom of information,” said Eric Newton, Knight Foundation Vice President for Journalism Programs. “But as media economics restructure, new approaches are needed. The National Freedom of Information Coalition is in a position to seed and lead new approaches.”

The Knight FOI Fund will be one of several NFOIC initiatives to address the fall-off in open government litigation, including a round of challenge grants to raise more local money for state Freedom of Information coalitions and a new website to help support the state FOI movement. You can read more about the Knight grant in our press release, and learn more about the NFOIC at the organization's website.

A plane carrying Laura Ling and Euna Lee touched down this morning at Burbank Airport, where the two journalists had a tearful reunion with their families. The women had been arrested in March for trespassing in North Korea while working on a report for Current TV, detained for months and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. After a visit yesterday between former US President Bill Clinton and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il, Ling and Lee were issued a pardon, and have now returned home.

A few grantees of the Knight Foundation have been monitoring the situation closely. Here are some of their reactions:

Stacy Woelfel, chairman of the Radio and Television News Directors Association:

We are pleased that North Korean officials have recognized that journalists—including RTNDA members—covering important international issues are working for people across the globe and deserve the freedom to pursue their stories free of government interference. I have hope the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee means the government of North Korea understands the basic right of journalists to investigate and report as they see fit.

Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists:

We welcome the news that Euna Lee and Laura Ling will be pardoned and released after more than four months in detention. This has been a long and complex process given the situation on the Korean peninsula. We thank former President Clinton for his intervention and we are grateful that the North Korean authorities have responded to appeals for clemency. We know that the families of these two reporters will be relieved to have their loved ones back home.

Liza Gross, interim director of the International Women's Media Foundation:

We are very grateful for the release of these two American journalists. As a worldwide network dedicated to press freedom, we spoke out on their behalf and our supporters advocated for their release by signing petitions that were then forwarded to the North Korean government. We are grateful for former President Clinton for his involvement and we welcome them home.

Also, the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas has more on the journalists' release.

Every year, the First Amendment Center issues a State of the First Amendment report based on telephone interviews. In 2008, 40 percent of respondents—the greatest percentage thus far—were not able to identify one of First Amendment freedoms.

Visitors to the Newseum respond to similar kinds of questions on kiosks as they exit the First Amendment Gallery. More of the Newseum visitors, by that poll, appreciate the First Amendment than do members of the general public, by the State of the First Amendment survey.

Just 12 percent of Newseum visitors say the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees, but 20 percent of the public says the same. Similarly, 39 percent of the public and 18 percent of Newseum visitors say the American press has too much freedom.

Here are some other examples:

It’s not a scientific comparison, but it appears people at the Newseum have the kinds of attitudes about the First Amendment that its supports would love to see in the general public surveys. Why? It is because the Newseum, which has the world’s largest copy of the First Amendment on its facade, simply attracts freedom-lovers? Or is there something special they learn inside? Or both?

The issue of First Amendment education has been in the news for years, since a major national study showed more than 75 percent of high school students did not know about or care about all of these fundamental freedoms.

Check out these educational programs focusing on the First Amendment and Constitution Day.

Freedom House released its annual survey of press freedom showing the unfortunate post 9-11 trend of decreasing press freedom around the world.

The latest: only 17 percent of people live in a country where they can express themselves freely.

Click "play". Green countries are free, yellow are partly free, and red aren't at all free. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the world starts to turn yellow and green. But then, after 9-11, it turns back to red.

To get involved in freedom of expression issues, pick a project to help out with by visiting the sites of Knight grantees working in this field. These include the International Center for Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Inter-American Press Association's Impunity Project, and the University of Miami's Knight Center for International Media.

PolitiFact.com, with its "Truth-o-Meter" for 2008 presidential campaign statements, and Ushahidi: Crowdsourcing Crisis Information, a site to report incidents of political violence from mobile devices, email, and the Web, won Special Distinction Awards.

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Yesterday, Patricia Martin of the Culture Scout Blog posted about teens and the Knight Future of the First Amendment survey and research.

"It seems that when First Amendment rights are made relevant through self-expressive technologies, kids grasp it. It makes the case for why information privacy needs to become part of the First Amendment freedoms."

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At the 2008 Online News Association Conference (follow the conference Twitter updates) that continues until Saturday, sessions and pre-conference workshops on media included a workshop on news games; Kurt Greenbaum of STL Social Media Guy blogged about how journalists are embracing news games. The Knight News Challenge winner Gotham Gazette is mentioned.

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And Heidi Williamson, who helps promote the Knight News Challenge (the $5 million yearly contest to fund innovative digital news delivery), has posted a new Seesmic video "What are the obstacles for innovation?" More than two dozen video responses have been posted, and you can join the discussion with your response here.