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Sunshine Campaign Print, Web Ads Available

Published: January 16, 2008
Last Updated: January 16, 2008

Contact:
Debra Gersh Hernandez
Coordinator, Sunshine Week
dghernandez@asne.org
703-807-2100

Pulse aquí para español.

For Immediate Release: Jan. 16, 2008

Washington — New online and print ads for the Sunshine Campaign open government initiative are now available in English and Spanish on the Sunshine Week Web site, and may be used free of charge by any participant.

The Sunshine Campaign is designed to spur campaign conversation — and commitment — to open government during this election year. Journalists, and anyone else with the opportunity, are encouraged to ask every candidate for public office from president to city council to explain his or her positions on open government and Freedom of Information issues.

The ads feature the Campaign's bi-partisan "spokesmammals" Ronnie and Donnie, as well as the "Vote for Sunshine" political button imagery. Hosting the tagline, "Government Access Is For Everyone," the ads are designed to remind people of the importance of open government during the election season. The ads may be used at any time through the November vote, and are particularly encouraged during Sunshine Week 2008, March 16-22.

"We're offering these ads in a variety of formats and languages to give different media opportunity to use them," said Gilbert Bailon, president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and editorial page editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "We want to remind people about the importance of their right to know what government is doing, regardless from where they get their information."

Two print ads — one with space for participants' name/logo and one without — are available in English and Spanish, color and black and white. There are four Web ads — a banner, a skyscraper and two buttons, each in English and Spanish — which conform to Internet Advertising Bureau standards.

Sunshine Week is a non-partisan open government initiative led by ASNE, with online and broadcast media, public officials, celebrities, civic groups, non-profits, libraries, schools, religious leaders and others. It is endowed through a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which invests in journalism excellence worldwide and the vitality of the 26 communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. It focuses on projects with the potential to create transformational change. For more information, visit www.knightfoundation.org.