Sunshine Week

'NOW' Examines Govt. Secrecy

On Friday, March 17, the PBS weekly newsmagazine "NOW" will air a one-hour special on government secrecy and what private citizens are doing to fight it. The program is timed to coincide with Sunshine Week.

Sunshine Week Editorial Cartoons

A gallery of editorial cartoons has been created for Sunshine Week participants by members of The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, in response to a call to action from president Clay   Bennett of The Christian Science Monitor. Also in the gallery is a cartoon commissioned by South Dakotans for Open Government and two from Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers in Florida.

Click here for the cartoons.

Open Govt. is Good Govt., Public Tells Pollsters on the Eve of the Second National Sunshine Week

Two national polls conducted on the eve of the second national Sunshine Week open government initiative, March 12-18, show a public that equates open government with effective democracy and is concerned about the rise in official secrecy at the national, state and local levels.

Sixty-two percent of respondents to a Scripps Survey Research Center poll conducted at the request of the American Society of Newspaper Editors said "public access to government records is critical to the functioning of good government."

The poll indicated that only a third of Americans consider the federal government "very open." Twenty-two percent of respondents consider the federal government "very secretive"; another 42 percent said it was "somewhat secretive." The Scripps poll is online here.

When asked about secrecy at the state and local level, respondents to the Scripps poll were less concerned: 10 percent said these legislative bodies were "very secretive" and 30 percent said "somewhat secretive." More than half, 55 percent, said state and local governments are open to public review.

In the second survey, eight in 10 (81 percent) said democracy requires government operate openly. The survey was conducted by the AccessNorthwest research and outreach project at the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University in Pullman, with a grant from the Knight Foundation and National Freedom of Information Coalition.

While nearly seven in 10 (69 percent) told researchers that open public records and meetings keep government honest, nearly as many (63 percent) said it was okay for government officials to keep records secret if they deem it necessary, and almost three-quarters of the public (73 percent) believe the president should "make some public records secret if it might help with the war on terrorism."

Read more about the polls here.

Singing the Open Records Blues

The quest for government information frequently leaves reporters and the public singing the blues. In this case, however, two Wisconsin men really are singing "The Open Records Blues."

The song was recorded for Sunshine Week by Peter Leidy, a Wisconsin-based political performer. The lyrics were written by Bill Lueders, news editor of Isthmus newspaper and president of the Wisconsin Freeedom of Information Council, a statewide group that seeks to protect public access to meetings and records.

According to Lueders, "The Open Records Blues" is based loosely on two lawsuits filed in the 1990s by Isthmus and another paper against the Madison Police Department, seeking records of complaints against police officers. The papers won both lawsuits.

Listen here: Download blues.mp3

J-Ideas Sunshine Week Podcasts

The team at J-Ideas at Ball State University in Muncie has developed two podcasts for Sunshine Week. The spots were produced by grad student Josie Bode under the direction of J-Ideas Director Warren Watson.

Supported by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, J-Ideas was developed to encourage excellence in high school journalism.

Muncie H.S. Students Fight for Access Muncie Central High School has a history of fighting for access to records. In this discussion, journalism adviser Terry Nelson talks with senior Luke Beasley (in hat), editor in chief of the student publication The Munsonian, and Andrew Walker, a junior who is the newspaper's managing editor and secretary of the Indiana High School Student Press Association. Download Muncie_Central_HS.mp3

Indianapolis Star Editor Ryerson on FOI In an interview with J-Ideas Director Warren Watson (right), Indianapolis Star Editor Dennis Ryerson (left), discusses the current media climate and its impact on open records laws. Ryerson also talks about how Freedom of Information laws impact people's lives. Download Dennis_Ryerson.mp3