This year it’s 20th anniversary Sunshine Week It was celebrated nationwide to promote the importance of open government at federal, state and local levels.
The idea came more than 20 years ago when Florida newspaper editors launched Sunshine on Sunday to highlight the need for government transparency. By 2005 it had grown into a week of government advocacy held nationwide. The current annual collaboration has been adjusted as follows: Joseph L. Brechner Freedom Information Project at the University of Florida’s Journalism and Communications College.
Around 100 organizations representing news media, public interest groups and public government supporters are supporting Sunshine Week. Tennessee Union for Open Government (TCOG) and the Tennessee Press Association (TPA) are one of these organizations.
Founded more than 150 years ago to support the newspaper industry, TPA played a key role in the launch of TCOG in 2003. This launched the TCOG in 2003 because they realized that the public needed a unified voice to protect and strengthen public government laws.
Jack McElroy, a former editor of Knoxville New Sentinel and a member of the TCOG Board of Directors, writes TCOG in the history of his organization.
Sunshine Week celebrates 20th Anniversary at a time when efforts to weaken or avoid open government laws are growing Public Trust News media and traditional institutions are eroded. Two of Tennessee’s top investigative journalists say it’s less transparent.
Mark Perskia Head Public Service Reporting Institute The University of Memphis was created in 2018. He has discovered corruption in state taxpayer-funded child care systems over the past 29 years as a reporter of commercial attraction in Memphis, naming several police use of armed forces and consumer gouging by car title lenders.
“Transparency and freedom of information are being assaulted at all levels of government. From Washington, administrative overreach has stolen legislative authorities with little or no scrutiny by elected lawmakers, creating a new Immigration Enforcement Bureau where governors and state legislators exempt state official records.
“Now, more than ever, we need lively coverage to challenge these violations of democratic principles and the associated disinformation. We need enthusiastic voters who are enlightened by easy-to-flow, reliable information that can only be provided by free and independent news media.”
Phil WilliamsNashville’s WTVF-TV investigator spent much of his 40-year career discovering corruption at the state and local levels, and facing many of the important issues of society, including hate groups and conspiracy theories moves like Qanon.
“In a time of very intense distrust of government, transparency is a desperately necessary antidote. We are increasingly discovering that citizens are willing to embrace conspiracy theories about governments who have been divorced entirely from reality,” Williams said.
“The best hope for fighting disinformation and misinformation is for the government to be completely open about what it is doing and why.”
Tennessee is one of the few states that open government groups have paid staff to educate their citizens and policymakers about the right to know; Research Show Active coalitions correlate with better government, according to David Cuillier, director of the Brechner project, which coordinates Sunshine Week.
Now, more than ever, we need lively coverage to challenge these violations of democratic principles and the associated disinformation. We need enthusiastic voters who are easily flowing and enlightened by reliable information that can only be provided by free and independent news media.
– Marc Perrusquia, a reporting laboratory for public services
These organizations across the country are struggling financially, Cuillier said. “It is important that community foundations and philanthropy maintain the TCOG strongly, as if Tennessee loses its TCOG.”
In recent years, TCOG has cooperated with lawmakers with:
- Requires that city and county legislators create an accurate and complete public agenda at least 48 hours prior to the meeting.
- It will allow citizens to recover their attorneys’ fees when they win a public meeting case.
- Future exceptions to the Public Records Act ensure that they are under full scrutiny by requiring review by the House Government Operations Committee.
TCOG, like similar state public advocacy groups, is a nonprofit organization that does not receive government funding and is entirely dependent on contributions from press, civic groups and individuals. TCOG budgets are paid to part-time employees.
With the General Assembly in full swing now, its sole employee, TCOG Executive Director Deborah Fisher, is monitoring any laws that may work to undermine open government laws and enhance public transparency. During the fiscal year, Fisherfield will receive many inquiries from citizens who need guidance from journalists and citizens, and will implement training sessions for journalists and government officials on the Public Records and Public Meeting Act.
Former Tennessee editor Frank Gibson said it’s an important job that the public should support. Leading efforts to create a TCOG In 2003, he served as executive director until 2011.
“With the news media and the changing political landscape, citizens need to be aware of attempts to better inform and close government information,” Gibson said. “Advocacy groups like the Tennessee Union for Open Government are a good way to inform the public and protect their freedom.”
Adam Yeomans is the vice president of the Tennessee Union of Open Government and former Southern Regional Director of Nashville-based Associated Press. He can reach with[email protected].
