[CW:MONTHLY] Sunshine on the Trail: Bringing Open Government to the Campaign

So many issues; so few opportunities to ask candidates where they stand. Yet in the upcoming elections - from the presidential race to local campaigns - there are few issues more important to ask incumbent and aspiring office holders about than open government.

Access to official documents and meetings affects our understanding of every other issue. Are we getting the full story on global warming? Who paid for the governor's "fact-finding" trip to Aruba? How fairly are funds being allocated to schools across the city? It all comes around to the public - and by extension, journalists - having access to information about what government is doing, and, most importantly, why.

Making open government a must-address campaign issue at all levels is the focus of the Sunshine Campaign, a special project of Sunshine Week, the open government initiative led by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and conducted with NLGJA and other groups. Journalists across the country are being urged to ask every candidate for public office key questions about open government. Responses will be culled into online databases, open to everyone. It's easy to get started: just begin asking the questions.

At the national level, there are some suggested starter questions online at www.sunshineweek.org/sunshineweek/toolkits. More categories of questions will be added in the coming weeks. For help in identifying state and local issues, look up your state SPJ Sunshine chair online at www.spj.org/sunshine-chairs.asp. And check with your state's FOI coalition (find it at www.nfoic.org/resources/states) and press association.

The answers you find can be used in news stories, opinion pieces, editorials, blogs, and as stand-alone pieces or parts of other features. Please be sure, however, to share with us what you find, so we can add it to the national online database. You can e-mail links or electronic files to Sunshine Week Coordinator Debra Gersh Hernandez at dghernandez@asne.org. Similarly, if you have any questions or have suggestions for the project, please let her know.

The upcoming elections provide a unique opportunity to rip a hole in the wall of unnecessary secrecy that's been building around government. The Sunshine Campaign is not about advocacy, it's about democracy.