Sunshine Week: Thanksgiving in March
A week of Thanksgiving is coming up. No, it's not November. It's March 11-17. That is when we give thanks that we live in a society where the people are presumed to be wise enough to govern themselves. It's when we celebrate Sunshine Week, a time to remember that the government is us - and we have not only the right but the obligation to know what we are doing.
As president of an organization of thriving community newspapers, I have the opportunity to speak with journalists and their readers from Boston to Arizona and from states as red as my home state of Texas and as blue as New Jersey, where my friends, the Parker family, are deeply committed to covering local government.
It is rewarding to know that my newspaper friends and their readers deeply believe in open government. Sunshine on government is the Vitamin D for democracy. It makes us whole and healthy. When we know what is going on, we are better able to make wise judgments on those few things that need to be confidential for a time in order let our public servants function.
Tom Brokaw, former NBC News anchor, said this about Sunshine Week:
"If we present ourselves to the world as patrons of democracy, then we must be vigilant stewards at home of the oxygen that it requires - access to what our government is doing and the right to speak freely about it. The Greatest Generation fought valiantly to preserve and protect those freedoms. It is up to us to ensure during Sunshine Week and all year that their sacrifices were not for naught."
I am proud that community newspapers provide their share of oxygen. Our immediate past president, Jerry Reppert, publisher of the Gazette-Democrat in Anna, for example, sued for copies of employment contracts for top officials of a state university, reasoning that citizens supporting higher education had a right to know how their money was spent.
The County Courier in Enosburg, Vt., in an editorial in advance of Sunshine Week, made the point both visually and with words by blacking out portions of the text. "There's always room for more sunshine in our lives. When it comes to government, we just have to be willing to stand up in the darkness and demand it," the editor wrote.
The Anderson County Review in Kansas helped to test local governments' responses to requests for public records, and found a reasonably good response except in sheriffs' departments. Two years later, it tried again and found remarkable progress: Only four of 33 offices failed to comply with the law.
The Altoona Mirror in Pennsylvania asked for information at 40 agencies. A reporter was surprised by confrontations and threats for trying to examine the public's business. Newspapers there have now banded together in "Brighter Pennsylvania," a program designed to help officials better understand the law.
And just recently, our friends at a small daily paper in Missouri, pursuing information at a local city hall, reported that the mayor said, "The way you come to City Hall will determine whether you are worked with or not."
Somehow, I have the feeling that isn't what our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) had in mind. I imagine some of our Founding Mothers might have washed the mayor's mouth out with soap.
That reminds me that community groups like the League of Women Voters participated in Sunshine Week last year, as well as groups as diverse as university journalists, local attorneys and even a fire department in Los Angeles.
I have two messages for newspapers and their readers.
One is: Remind public servants that we trust them the most when we know the most about what they are doing.
The other is: Read the newspaper. It's the best way to enjoy the sunshine.
Jerry Tidwell is president of the National Newspaper Association and publisher of the Hood County News in Granbury, Texas.
