Sunshine Week

Royal Gazette Feels Burned After Push for Sunshine Law in Bermuda

The Royal Gazette in Hamilton, Bermuda, celebrated its first Sunshine Week in 2008. Then the government pulled its advertising.

While government officials maintain the move was part of an overall cost-cutting initiative, Royal Gazette Editor Bill Zuill, sees it differently.

"In the end, it would appear that Sunshine Week, and this newspaper's advocacy of a Freedom of Information law, was the straw that broke the camel’s back," he wrote in a special editorial for Sunshine Week.

"The government’s confused message on the legislation along with its vigorous efforts to discredit the campaign and The Royal Gazette suggest that the ban had been in the works for some time, but our attempts to shine a little light on the inner workings of government proved to be more than it could take," Zuill added.

Zuill's opinion column may be republished by newspapers, Web sites, bloggers and others. Because of the difficulty in tracking such use, please let us know if you've used it.

Click here for Zuill's column and links to PDFs of The Royal Gazette's Sunshine Week coverage.

Sunshine Week Partners With Helium for Citizen Journalism Awards

Sunshine Week and Helium have expanded their partnership on the online citizen journalism site with the new Sunshine Week Citizen Journalism Award.

Each month, the award will recognize the Helium writer who has posted the most compelling article about a specific open government issue. Noting that nearly 9 in 10 people say they want to know where candidates stand on access issues, the first competition asks writers to address the question: Are candidates missing an opportunity to connect with voters on open government issues?

At the end of the month, a winner will be selected from among the top ranked work, as rated by fellow Helium writers. Monthly winners will receive an award certificate and automatically become eligible for a grand prize, which will be presented in conjunction with Sunshine Week 2009, March 15-21.

To learn more about the competition and to write to Sunshine Week’s current contest title, visit www.helium.com/journalism-awards/sunshine-week.

Professional and amateur writers alike can sign up for free as Helium contributors and take part in the competition. There also are opportunities to write about non-competition titles on Helium's Sunshine Week partner page, www.helium.com/partners/sunshineweek.

Visit the Web for more information about Sunshine Week, www.sunshineweek.org, and Helium, www.helium.com.