With ASNE and other journalism organizations leading the way, Congress passes the OPEN Government Act, has a federal shield law in the works and is working with a new recognition that transparency is important
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Sunshine Week is working — don't let it fade
| Andy Alexander is the Washington bureau chief of Cox Newspapers and a member of the ASNE board. |
Here's the most important thing you need to know about Sunshine Week:
It makes a difference.
Since being launched only three years ago, it's been hugely successful in focusing national attention on the runaway growth of government secrecy.
From the U.S. Capitol to city hall, public officials have started to feel the heat from citizens who want more transparency.
Public hearings have been held. Proclamations have been issued. For the first time in decades, Congress made improvements in the federal Freedom of Information Act and President Bush signed the legislation into law.
"Each year, we've seen not only more people talking and caring about open government issues, but also a wider variety of people" taking part in Sunshine Week, says national coordinator Debra Gersh Hernandez.
"The support from the journalism community has been invaluable," she adds, "and now it's strengthened by scientists, historians and archivists, schools, libraries, civic groups and even individuals who write us asking what they can do."
Now ... here's the second most important thing you need to know about Sunshine Week: It could fade if it doesn't grow.
Sunshine Week's rapid expansion has given it real momentum. It's now on the verge of becoming an enduring annual national event. But if it stagnates, it could easily die - along with all the potential gains being sought by those who believe in open government.
Few national campaigns have succeeded like Sunshine Week.
The seed for the idea was planted in mid-2003 at an ASNE-led FOI summit in Washington that attracted some of the nation's key players in the battle against official secrecy. Several states, notably Florida, had organized successful Sunshine Sunday campaigns. Would it be possible to expand that concept to a national Sunshine Week?
Peter Bhatia, executive editor of The Oregonian in Portland, who was then ASNE president, publicly proposed the idea in his farewell address at the organization's annual convention. Within months, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation provided a critical $100,000 grant and Sunshine Week was officially born.
Organizers hoped dozens of news organizations would participate in the first-ever national Sunshine Week in 2005. To their surprise and joy, hundreds took part by producing stories, editorials, columns and cartoons about excessive government secrecy.
The next year was even bigger, with broadened participation by broadcasters, online sites, civics groups and others.
Last year's Sunshine Week was bigger, still. There were more than 800 participating news organizations from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Austria, Canada, France, Malaysia, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
And Sunshine Week 2008, from March 16-22, surely will be the best. Much of it is built around the "Sunshine Campaign," an innovative election year effort to get candidates — from president to local city council — to address issues involving government secrecy.
The growth of Sunshine Week in just a few years has been phenomenal.
But there are significant challenges ahead.
One is funding. Sunshine Week operates on a shoestring budget. As the Knight foundation's grant commitment diminishes, ASNE must now find new sources of funding.
A second major challenge, perhaps more serious, is avoiding “FOIA fatigue.” It can take many forms. Some editors grow weary because the battle against secrecy is unrelenting. Others become apathetic. Still others foolishly think the problem is being fixed by the signing of a FOIA reform bill or the approaching end of the excessively secret Bush administration.
Through Sunshine Week and the tireless efforts of so many champions of open government, progress has been made in recent years.
But official secrecy continues to grow, especially at the state and local levels. For example, there are important battles to be waged over access to government databases and digital records, so critical to our online operations. And on a daily basis, officials at all levels of government capriciously deny access to public information, almost taunting news organizations to take them to court if they don't like it.
Open government advocates often feel like Sisyphus, the king in Greek mythology who was condemned to an eternity of repeatedly rolling a boulder up a hill and then watching it roll back down again.
The spread of secrecy sometimes seems unstoppable. The battle can appear unwinnable. And it's not uncommon for editors to experience a sense of futility.
But the stakes are too high to ease up. That's why it's so important to make sure Sunshine Week thrives and grows. |
Christian Trejbal is an editorial writer for The Roanoke (Va.) Times. He can be reached at christian.trejbal@roanoke.com
OPEN GOVERNMENT IS ON THE DECLINE. Officials at all levels are hiding more information than ever before. The Freedom of Information Act and all of its state progeny are on their last legs.
So goes the conventional wisdom.
The conventional wisdom is wrong. There are still plenty of reasons to worry, but there are plenty of reasons for optimism, too.
Sure, shadows persist.
The White House and many federal agencies have erected barriers to access in recent years. Even former presidents enjoy fresh power to hide the records of their time in office. New fights over records - and the destruction of records - start almost weekly.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in many states chipped away at the public's right to know. The National Freedom of Information Coalition and the Better Government Association last year surveyed state open government laws. Thirty-eight states earned failing grades in the analysis. None earned an 'A'.
Nevertheless, in 2008, the sun shines a bit more brightly on government.
Few people know better the status of open government in America than Pete Weitzel, coordinator of the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government.
"Overall, things are relatively speaking good or at least looking up," he recently told me.
The good
The brightest change came at the end of 2007. Congress passed and the president signed the first major revision to the Freedom of Information Act in a decade.
The OPEN Government Act sets stricter deadlines for answering FOIA requests and creates mechanisms for filers to track the status of their requests. It also imposes tougher penalties on agencies that fail to comply with legal requests, including payment of attorney fees if victorious in an appeal to Federal Court.
Contrary to many news stories, however, the act did not restore a presumption of openness. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft's instruction that agencies choose secrecy when there is uncertainty remains a hurdle.
A number of journalism organizations helped secure passage of the bill.
ASNE and the Society of Professional Journalists in particular worked hard throughout the legislative process.
Meanwhile, coverage from many news organizations kept pressure on lawmakers. The Associate Press, for example, smoked out Sen. Jon Kyle, R-Ariz., who had placed an anonymous hold on it.
The crawl toward digital access continued apace as federal spending became more transparent. The Office of Management and Budget in December launched USASpending.gov, which allows anyone to see where federal contracts are going and for what. No doubt it will prove a fruitful tool for newspapers analyzing their local congressional delegation's performance.
Other long-sought changes have their best shot at passage in years.
Congressional Research Service reports could find their way online. The reports contain a wealth of information that informs congressional debate, but the public only sees one if a staffer leaks it or a congressman hand out a copy. A pending Senate resolution would call for their automatic release.
More important, a federal shield law remains in the works. The Free Flow of Information Act has passed the House and awaits Senate action.
All but one state have laws or legal precedents that protect reporters from compelled disclosure of confidential sources, but the federal government affords no such protection.
We have all seen the results.
Dozens of reporters in recent years have been subpoenaed or questioned about confidential sources in federal court cases. Some, most notably Judith Miller, have served prison time for refusing to comply.
In such an environment, sources who might disclose government waste, fraud and abuse have good reason to fear exposure. That chills revelations, diminishing public oversight and accountability.
Less of the bad
What did not happen was equally vital.
"The more encouraging thing is that we haven't had as many bills that we've needed to stop," Weitzel said about the current Congress. "There is a recognition that transparency is important and that they can't just go closing things willy-nilly. That's real progress."
Not only were there fewer congressional attacks on openness, when lawmakers and administrators did consider closing access, they tended to heed the concerns of FOI advocates and change course.
At the request of several media organizations, for example, the Senate removed language from the farm bill that would have sealed records related to an animal identification program and set criminal penalties for anyone who published the information.
Likewise, the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill originally would have exempted a swath of public records from FOIA. CJOG and other media groups lobbied against the exemptions. In the past, there might have been a protracted struggle over the language. This time, the bill's writers were willing to compromise and removed the most controversial provisions before passage.
Fighting for openness
Outside Washington, newspapers continue to shine on the front lines. We filed requests for documents, demand access to meetings and go to court to defend the public's right to know.
In Mississippi, newspaper executives are developing a plan to push the state legislature to reform open records and meetings laws that exemptions have diluted.
Pennsylvanians convened a statewide open government coalition with strong newspaper support.
The publishers of the Austin American-Statesman, the San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle are suing the state for records about security details assigned to the governor.
In Louisiana, The Times-Picayune successfully sued the Orleans Parish coroner for access to autopsy records from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The industry vigilantly focused sunshine on all levels of government and resisted the seemingly universal government preference for shadows.
Yet it is not enough. We can do more.
Make open government an issue in every election.
Newspapers report and condemn government secrecy as it happens. News stories reveal that the school board will not release the new superintendent's contract. Editorials castigate the city council for meeting without public notice.
Too few stories remind voters about those incidents when incumbents run for re-election. Their records on openness - good or bad - belong in stories that recount their time in office. A paragraph or two explaining who complied with records requests and who violated the FOI law is all it takes.
Then ask challengers their views. All candidates should face questions about their commitment to openness. It is perhaps the only issue that matters in every race from dogcatcher on up to president.
Open government is not the kind of thing that generates sexy, controversy-provoking discussions on the campaign trail, but CJOG's Weitzel argues raising it could lead to profound changes.
"I really believe if we can get people asking those questions of every candidate who comes in at every level, we'll see some real momentum on the issue," he said.
Most candidates will mouth platitudes about keeping the public informed. Some will surprise. They will honestly reveal that they think the public does not need to know so much. That is something voters need to know.
Merely raising the issue serves the public. It tells candidates that open government is a priority, that it is not optional and that we will be watching.
The message is especially important for novice candidates who might have given it little thought.
ASNE can help editors unsure of where to start. The association has taken the lead in the 2008 Sunshine Campaign that aims to make open government an issue in races and to put candidates on the record. Check out http://www.sunshineweek.org/ for more information.
Explain to readers why open government matters.
Historically, we have not done a very good job of telling people why open government is important to them, how it affects them, how it affects the quality of their government and what information they can get.
Grand explanatory stories and investigations for Sunshine Week are great, but for the message to stick, reporters and editors must keep open government in the news.
"We have to do a much better job of telling people in everyday stories that we're able to tell you something because the law says it is a public record or conversely we can't tell you X, Y or Z because public official X won't release it," Weitzel said.
Newspapers must also dispel the myth that FOIA and other open government laws are nothing more than tools nosy journalists use to harass government officials. Average citizens use these laws, too. Tell their stories.
Typically, records requests are themselves public records. Periodically checking them can reveal what people are investigating. There will be the usual suspects with axes to grind, but sometimes there will be something unusual, something curious, something interesting, something worth a story.
In Virginia last year, newspapers reported more troubles at the State Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. They were but the most recent episodes in a years-long story that began with a citizen's FOIA request. One man's request for public documents ultimately sparked investigations that revealed fraud and abuse, and ultimately led to the ouster and indictment of the director.
It was a great story that started when a citizen demanded his government respond.
Open government is not just for journalists. It is and always has been for the people. It is our job to remind them of that.