Sunshine Week more important now than ever

It’s Sunshine Week. Each year at this time we highlight the importance of transparency in government and underscore the work journalists do to shed light on government activity. It’s never been more important.

The Sunshine Act and the Right to Know Law are Pennsylvania’s primary public access laws. These laws guarantee the public’s right to access government information at public meetings and through public records.

Open access to meetings and records is fundamental to the public’s ability to understand government actions and hold officials accountable. Access to public information is essential for journalists to accurately report what elected officials are doing and how it impacts your life. Otherwise you will be kept in the dark.

This week and every week, we and our fellow news organizations in the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association will continue to advocate for more access to essential information from all levels of government.

The PNA is stressing three key transparency issues. One, for public agencies to record executive sessions. Two, for requiring agencies to provide agendas in advance of meetings so the public can attend and participate in issues that matter to them. Three, for keeping public notices in newspapers, so you know what’s going on in your community and have a chance to participate in a decision before it’s made.

These issues are extremely important, but Sunshine Week is about much more than convincing lawmakers in Harrisburg to do the right thing when it comes to government transparency.

It’s imperative that we make the public aware of just how important it is to have local reporters working to keep an eye on what’s happening in local communities.

There are plenty of options for finding out what’s going on in Washington, but that’s not the case with community news. The actions of school, municipal and county boards have a far more direct impact on people’s lives than anything that happens in the Capitol, but too many people don’t bother to read their local news regularly. Some say they don’t have the time. Others object to paying for the content that hardworking reporters, editors, photographers and artists produce. The result is that over the past 15 years, more than one in five U.S. newspapers have closed, and the number of journalists working for newspapers has been cut in half.

A growing number of American towns have no newspaper at all. Unless residents themselves are willing to sit through meetings and fight to ensure that important public information is not being kept secret, officials in such communities are free to act with impunity.

We have not been immune to the economic challenges facing the newspaper industry, but we and our fellow Pennsylvania newspapers are still here, working hard to continue serving the public and holding the powerful accountable.

Here at home we’ve kept a close eye on problems with the criminal justice system, particularly as it relates to the treatment of indigent offenders. We’ve kept the public informed about the activities of county, municipal and school officials and fought for access to meetings and key information that some in the government want to keep secret.

Just in the last few weeks our colleagues at Spotlight PA and The Caucus sought details on state legislative spending and wound up exposing lawmakers’ unfortunate penchant for secrecy. The effort embarrassed at least some legislative officials into dropping an effort to hide essential details on how taxpayers’ money was being spent.

We urge readers to support the efforts of journalists wherever they are by subscribing to newspaper products and speaking out on behalf of the issues regarding government transparency that our industry backs.

Our nation, state and communities depend on having people who work day and night to shine a light on what’s happening in the corridors of power at all levels. Please join us this week and all year long in celebrating that important endeavor.