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"Bright Ideas for Sunshine Week 2006", a 72-page, full-color book features examples of some of the different ways Sunshine Week was observed in 2005. Sections include news and features, editorials and commentary, graphics and presentation, broadcast reports, online presentation, and ideas for 2006.
The entire book is posted on the Sunshine Week Web site, broken out by section for easier downloading. Click on each chapter heading to open the PDF file.
NEW YORK, Jan. 30 /PRNewswire/—The PBS weekly newsmagazine NOW will air a one-hour special on March 17, 2006 about government secrecy as part of "Sunshine Week," when newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, and Web sites around the nation publish reports that foster a dialogue about the importance of open government to the public and to our democracy. In "The Sunshine Gang," NOW shines a spotlight on the erosion of open government in America through the stories of whistleblowers-insiders who in many cases have risked it all for their democracy by telling the truth.
The League of Women Voters has selected 14 communities to host Sunshine Week forums as part of its "Openness in Government: Looking for Sunshine" project.
The League also has developed a resource guide to public access to official documents, which includes suggestions for how citizens can become more involved in this issue and will help additional League chapters conduct Sunshine Week events around the nation.
For more information, go to the LWV Web site, http://www.lwv.org.
During the first Monday of Sunshine Week 2006, March 13, several groups will host a national teleforum on open government asking "Are We Safer in the Dark?"
The national panel, broadcast from the National Press Club in Washington, will be fed via satellite to host locations across the country. Following the national program, those sites will engage in discussions of openness issues particular to their states and communities.
The national panel will be moderated by Geneva Overholser, who holds an endowed chair in the Missouri School of Journalism's Washington bureau. Speakers include Thomas S. Blanton, direction of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, and Thomas M. Susman, a partner in the Washington office of Ropes & Gray.
The program is being developed by the American Association of Law Libraries, the American Library Association, the American Society of Newspaper Editors/Sunshine Week, the Association of Research Libraries, the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government, the League of Women Voters, the National Freedom of Information Coalition, OpenTheGovernment.org, and the Special Libraries Association.
More information, including details on how to participate, can be found online here.
