Feds to pay newspapers' attorneys fees from Katrina relief case

After recently losing a Freedom of Information Act case related to the dispersal of Hurricane Katrina relief aid, the federal government has agreed to pay the News-Press and other Gannett-owned newspapers in Florida $105,000 in attorneys fees. 

While this development isn’t necessarily a surprise considering the 11th Circuit’s June 2007 decision forcing the Department of Homeland Security to release details pertaining to the distribution of the $1.2 billion in aid, it’s nonetheless heartening to the see the conflict end without further need for the kind of expensive litigation the government essentially forced the newspapers into in the first place.