(Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection - Editor's Notes by Christina Myer)

Saturday wraps up Sunshine Week 2026, a nation-wide effort to raise awareness about open government challenges — to push for “sunlight” as opposed to darkness when it comes to our governments’ operations.

I’ll admit, I used to think Sunshine Week fell during this part of March because of the vernal equinox signaling a return to more real sunshine. It turns out, it is meant to fall around James Madison’s birthday (March 16) because of his efforts on the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment is a big one, after all.

During Sunshine Week, reporters and ordinary citizens are encouraged to learn more about Freedom of Information Act requests — not just the proper procedure, but how to write one effectively and how to fight to have one fulfilled. We are also encouraged to keep an eye on efforts to price citizens out of being able to file a FOIA request because fees have become prohibitive.

Public records laws are essential. So are laws that require publication of public notices in newspapers, rather than allow for government foxes to guard their own hen houses by keeping those notices obscured on state-run websites.

Sunshine Week also reminds us to be vigilant against efforts to chip away at requirements to keep some measure of transparency in government.

Elimination of the requirement to publish ANY legally mandated public notice in newspapers drastically reduces the number of residents who have access to that information. Even baby steps must be prevented to keep a veil from being drawn entirely over government operations.

Sunshine Week is an important opportunity for elected officials to remember that pulling public notices from newspapers virtually guarantees that information will no longer be available to thousands of rural, poor and older residents.

Rather than forcing a person to know what they are looking for and search it out on a government-run website (again, assuming they have the access and ability to do so to begin with), public notices printed regularly in newspapers arrive for readers every day.

Included in those newspapers is often also coverage of local meetings, hearings, town halls and other public events from which our reporters can report the information you need. Efforts to change public and news media access and other open government laws must be guarded against, too.

When organizers started Sunshine Week back in 2002, it was a response to governments pretending they needed to be more opaque after the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001.

“Suddenly, we’re seeing government secrecy at an all-time high,” said Tim Franklin, who at the time was an editor at the Orlando Sentinel. “It was becoming an issue that was unchecked because anytime it was questioned, the response was “it’s a matter of national security.'”

Thank goodness Florida’s First Amendment Foundation and its partners decided at the time that was nonsense and launched Sunshine Week to help the rest of us support one another.

Don’t get me wrong, here we have some very good public officials who understand the newspapers’ (and their constituents’) rights and needs for as much information about government operation as possible. We are certainly grateful for those who get it.

But there are always, everywhere, elected officials and bureaucrats who believe the government operates best in the shadows; and never stop looking for ways to blot out the sun.

Sunshine Week 2026 may be wrapping up. But we can’t stop looking for ways to let the sun back in, either.

Christina Myer is executive editor of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. She can be reached via e-mail at cmyer@newsandsentinel.com.