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Sunshine Week 2006 Online Gallery Four

Published: May 25, 2006
Last Updated: May 25, 2006

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In anticipation of Sunshine Week, PARADE Magazine featured an insightful article about government secrecy asking, "Are they taking away our freedoms?"

"Today, access to information has never been freer—and yet we seem to live in an age of deepening secrets," wrote Lyric Wallwork Winik in the Feb. 26 issue. "Restrictions on what we know have become commonplace, whether it’s allegations of government eavesdropping, lists of peaceful war protesters kept by the Defense Department, companies hiding their failing pension programs or the medical report cards of hospitals and physicians that some states keep under wraps."

Wallwork Winik posed the question: "What should we as a free and open society demand and expect to know?"

The article features comments from lawmakers and government access experts, as well as links to relevant Web sites, including Sunshine Week, for more information. It can be read online here. PARADE is distributed by more than 340 newspapers to more than 36 million households across the country, where it is read by more than 76 million people.

Students at Wyoming Valley West Senior High School in Plymouth, Pa., marked Sunshine Week with class discussions and a T-shirt designed by two classmates.

Journalism teacher Leslie Nicholas said when he asked his students how they wanted to celebrate Sunshine Week, the idea of the T-shirt sounded like a lot of fun. Sophomores Lindsay Adams and Maggie McCormick took on the design project, creating a new logos for the front (above, left) and back (right) of the shirts.

About 85 students wore the shirts during the Tuesday of Sunshine Week, March 14, (many but not all are pictured below) and further showed their solidarity and support for open government and free press by donning Student Press Law Center "First Amendment Freedom Fighter" tattoos (left).

"It was a good way to get everyone to realize what it was about," McCormick told Sunshine Week, nothing that most participants were in the journalism and advanced journalism classes.

Nicholas commented that the T-shirt project was a springboard to discussion of open government issues, which he had been covering in class. The result was that students understand that the "average Joe" could access information, not just government officials.

The banner headline on the Sunday, March 12, 2006 edition of the Carroll County Times in Westminster, Md., got right to the point. "Redacted" text in the headline and in the modified flag graphically demonstrated to readers the frustration of excessive withholding of information.

Both the lead article and the front-page graphic in the Times were produced by staff writer David Mann.

Also on the front page were three stories focusing on how communities can suffer when information is withheld, the public's right to that information, and what lawmakers are doing to open meetings rules.

The package also featured several stories inside the paper, and on the front page gave the Web site for the Maryland Foundation for Open Government as a resource.

The stories were produced by the Carroll County Times, The Capital in Annapolis and The Herald-Mail in Hagerstown for distribution to members of the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association to use on that Sunday, explained Carroll County Times Editor Jim Lee. The Frederick News-Post contribution ran a couple of days later.

"For me, equal rights have been a vague principle for my living situation. I am a 17-year-old Native American girl, and I live in one of the country’s most poverty-stricken reservations.

"Living on Pine Ridge Reservation is not always an example of equal rights. Equal rights means discrimination is prohibited, but on a daily basis myself and others are faced with slander and libel."

So begins the essay by 17-year-old Charlee Bad Wound of Pine Ridge, student division winner in the South Dakotans for Open Government second annual Sunshine Week "Let the Sun Shine In" essay contest.

In the adult division, Kaleb Boese, 20, of Freeman took home the award for his essay examining the need for equality as a component of social harmony. He wrote, in part, "The public must be well informed of decisions and policies of its officials to ensure that they are being represented accurately in government.

"Therefore, the government must also remain open to the public," Boese continued. "Citizens do not know how they are being represented, if they do not have access to the decisions, policies, laws, etc. that politicians are working on."

The SDOG competition, whose theme for 2006 was "Equal Rights to All and Special Privileges to None," was open to adults and students across the state. The winning entries can be read online at the SDOG Web site.

Journalism students at Elon University in North Carolina took advantage of a campus lecture by former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee to tape an interview segment for their Sunshine Week program.

The Bradlee interview, which includes questions from 5th grade students at nearby Elon Elementary School, capped the program, which also featured a discussion with Alamance News Publisher Tom Boney, who fought against closed meetings, and an overview of the laws in North Carolina.

Copies of the program on DVD were mailed to elementary school teachers throughout Alamace County. The program also can be viewed online by clicking here.

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