The Salt Lake law firm of Kimball, Parr, Waddoups, Brown & Gee has been named one of three national recipients of the 1993 First Amendment Awards of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Since April 1992, firm attorneys have been answering questions from journalists throughout Utah on a toll-free Freedom of Information Hotline. As a result, government policies have been changed, meetings have been opened and records released.Along with the law firm, which was nominated by the society's Utah Headliners Chapter, Linda Deutsch, an Associated Press special correspondent based in California, and Warren Olney, with KCRW-FM in Los Angeles, received the prestigious awards.

The awards will be formally presented to the winners at SPJ's 1994 National Convention in Nashville. SPJ is the largest organization of journalists in the nation - including print and broadcast journalists and journalism educators.

During its first year, the Utah Freedom of Information Hotline has logged a significant record of calls. Some 109 calls were taken from 14 different news or-gan-i-za-tions.

More than 60 percent of the calls were for advice about records access as reporters and public officials struggled to understand Utah's overhauled records law, the Government Records Access and Man-age-ment Act.

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The hotline also fielded 30 calls about open meetings and seven about access to court records. When necessary, hotline attorneys, particularly lead attorney Jeff Hunt, gave advice and called public officials and wrote letters.

This support to Utah journalists came at only a token cost to the cosponsor, the Utah Headliners Chapter. In all, Kimball, Parr, Waddoups, Brown & Gee donated $43,679 in time and hard costs to the hotline during its first year of operation.

"Such monetary and legal support show an unusual commitment to the First Amendment and it principles. Because of the firm's efforts, the public benefits by having a better understanding about how and what its government is doing," said Dan Harrie, chapter president.

The hotline number, open to all working journalists, is 532-7840 in the Salt Lake area or 1-800-574-4546 in other areas of the state.

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