Sunshine Week

1. The public's right to know what its government is doing is essential to democracy.
2. Access to information can empower individuals and improve communities.
3. The right to know is for everyone, not just journalists.

Public Advocacy - Civil Rights and Liberties

Sunshine Week is a national initiative that encourages people to better understand the importance of people's right to know what their government is doing, and why.

Sunshine Week seeks to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger.

By targeting this annual effort to a week in mid-March, we're able to bring together in a critical mass members of the print, broadcast and online news media, as well as civic groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know.

Sunshine Week is led by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, but its scope goes well beyond journalism. The focus truly is on the importance of this issue to democracy and its people.

Sunshine Week is a non-partisan initiative whose supporters are conservative, liberal and everything in between.

All support for Sunshine Week will be applied to the Journalism for a New Age Challenge Grant, unless otherwise specified. The challenge grant from the Knight Foundation will endow ASNE's work on the First Amendment and assist editors in leading change in the evolving business of journalism.