Renowned journalist Kathy Kiely came to Bucks April 19 in an effort to change misconceptions about government transparency and citizen journalism by informing people about Sunlightfoundation.com, which aims to create openness through technology.

“Our mission is to put the tools of technology to work making government more transparent and empowering its owners – in other words, the voters,” Kiely said.

After covering politics for the National Journal, USA today and New York Daily News, Kiely said she is passionate about the Sunlight Foundation – of which she is the managing editor – because she believes they work to fill information gaps.

The truth of the matter is that it is easy to get information off the Internet, but not all information is good information.

Kiely spoke of how politicians would not always give her reliable information.  In this information age where everyone has a Facebook or Twitter, the public are in fact publishers and should be ready to properly report, according to Kiely.

“It is important to know that information is power,” said Kiely that proved true by the end of the lecture.

One of the activities of the  Sunlight Foundation is called  “Political Party Time.” This dealt with viewing invitations that were for fundraisers and events for different politicians. These invitations come from anonymous sources and show the host of the events and the beneficiary.

It could prove interesting down the road when you see who these different organizations vote for.  “The more we know about who is pulling the levers of power, the more empowered we are,” Kiely said.

The next section was called “Influence Explorer,” where one could see which candidate companies favored and how much money they donated to campaigns. Kiely looked at the Philadelphia Eagles and determined their favorite candidate of all-time was former Gov. Ed Rendell, with Democrat Allison Swartz being the current favorite.

Located in the rest of the  site was a section to view what companies have been cited by the EPA and what advisory companies were helping the U.S. government regulate laws.  The “Follow the Unlimited Money” section provides information that allows one to view what money has been spent and donated for campaigns.

The most intriguing section of the site was a subsection called “Scout.” This allowed the public to follow hot topics such as firearms or abortion and see how frequently they have been brought up in Congress.

One fascinating story was when Congress tried to push a bill that would have exempted the Food and Drug Administration from giving open information to the public. Essentially, consumers wouldn’t know what they were eating. When the Sunlight Foundation saw this update pop up, they were able to notify the proper organizations involved, Kiely said.

The Sunlight Foundation website even has a section called “Churnalism” that allows users to discover whether a news article they’ve read has been plagiarized from another news site.

Students seemed to really enjoy Kiely’s talk.

“It was intriguing and her background was fascinating to listen to, said Adriana Morales, 25, liberal arts major.  “She has worked a lot in politics and it is cool that she was a journalist as well,” Morales said.

Kiely even has ties to Bucks as a former chemistry lab partner of President Stephanie Shanblatt.

For email alerts visit sunlightfoundation.com and for phone alerts call the “Call on Congress” line at 1-888-907-6886.