Flow

Scores of people crowded into a ballroom and sat at tables furiously taking notes, even more furiously tapping out tweets and urgently asking questions at a Sunshine Week workshop on ensuring information flows freely.

Some of the questions at the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition event were about how to wrest specific facts from those who want to keep secrets. Others were more broadly about best practices to keep government honest.

Open records "requests have exploded," said Mary Dulacki, custodian of Denver police records.

My takeaway: People want to know what's going on. They know real facts are out there. They aren't just throwing up their hands and saying it's impossible to tell fact from fiction. They don't accept that assumption, opinion and spin are all there is.

Later over lunch, MSNBC political analyst Eli Stokols described the times in which we live, with not only fake news to combat, but fake accusations that unwelcome news is fake.

"The job is still the job," Stokols said. "You're trying to figure out the truth. You're trying to write it."

I don't think the dissemblers and the stone-wallers have a chance.