News and views from inside the media bubble
SUNLIGHT IN APPALACHIA
Last week, a repository for documents leaked by whistleblowers called Honest Appalachia arrived on the scene. Modeled after Wikileaks, the Charleston, W.Va.-based outfit is set up to hold accountable institutions such as oil and gas companies, banks and zoning boards, along with local and state governments, and to pro- mote transparency in the Appalachian region, which includes West Virginia, and parts of North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. A press release indicates that the website is being operated by a team of computer scientists, freelance journalists and transparency activists. Organizers say that the website uses secure technology so that leakers can upload documents without fear of discovery, even through legal action. Funded by seed money from the Washington-based Sunlight Foundation, Honest Appalachia is designed as a low-cost outfit that can be replicated and adapted to other regions across the country and world. A written statement by the project’s organizers outlines their philoso- phy: “We believe the world has too many secrets for one website.”
