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Learn more about Sunshine Week at the website, sunshineweek.org.

Related Ibold, Metzgar work featured at Nieman website (May 2) McClatchy papers publish Ibold's op-ed piece (March 18) Metzgar, Ibold to present work at online journalism symposium (March 7)

While many IU students will be soaking up the rays during spring break, Louis A. Weil Jr. Endowed Chair and Director of the National Sports Journalism Center Tim Franklin will also be enjoying the sun. Franklin is serving as co-chair for the American Society of News Editors' Sunshine Week, the annual journalism observance that celebrates freedom of public information in America.

Sunday through March 19, ASNE and its partners encourage newspapers and other media organizations around the country to write about public information issues, highlight citizens who fight for public records and encourage people to learn more about their right to public information.

For the third year, Franklin is co-chair of the ASNE Freedom of Information Committee that is responsible for Sunshine Week. This is especially fitting because he was part of the original movement that led to the inception of Sunshine Week.

In 2001, when Franklin was the editor at the Orlando Sentinel, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt died in a crash at the 2001 Daytona 500. Franklin and other editors wanted access to autopsy reports – public records — in order to investigate the cause of death. But the Florida legislature quickly passed a bill protecting the autopsy reports from public view. In protest, Florida newspapers ran editorials on the same Sunday on open government and the public’s access to information.

Franklin

Sunshine Sunday became Sunshine Week when ASNE took up the cause.

“It’s now mushroomed into this big weeklong national event,” Franklin said.

The Sunshine Week website encourages media organizations, college and high school journalists and other citizens to host workshops and events to bring the public’s attention to the cause. It also offers resources such as reading lists and links to Freedom of Information Act material on the Web and elsewhere.

Since 9/11, government actions have chipped away at some freedom of information practices, Sunshine Week supporters say. For example, during the Bush administration, then-attorney general John Ashcroft said a petitioner has to show why a record or document should be public. Previously, that burden had been on the government to show why it should not be made public.

“In a self-governing democracy, we can’t take for granted the transparency of government and public officials,” Franklin said. “This campaign has alerted millions of people to the potential dangers of that.”

Fargo

Associate professor and former head of the Indiana Coalition for an Open Government Anthony Fargo said Sunshine Week has special importance this year because of two recent Supreme Court cases ruling in favor of the public’s right to information. One involved AT&T’s shielding of information it submits to the government from public. The other case scaled back the application of the U.S. Navy’s “High 2” exemption, which the court ruled was being used too broadly to hide maps and other public information from the public.

“It makes Sunshine Week particularly timely this year,” Fargo said.

Sunshine Week reminds people that there are laws making certain information open to the public, he said.

“They become important when we least expect them to,” Fargo said. “We’ve lost some of the panic and fear after 9/11.” The lack of government transparency builds distrust, he added.

Despite the recent progress made in the name of public information, the struggle for a completely open and transparent government is not over.

“There’s still a long way to go,” Franklin said.

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