Sunshine Week is a national media initiative to open dialogue on open government and freedom of information. All this week, The Evening Sun will be focusing its coverage on what’s happening in our governments, schools, communities and the newsroom to encourage government transparency. Today’s feature assesses what’s being done, and not being done, at the newspaper to hold elected officials and department heads accountable. Tomorrow will look at executive session laws; when it’s legal and when it’s not.

Reporters don’t have any special rights over the public in gaining access to government records under Freedom of Information Laws.

But reporters do have a special responsibility to hold all levels of government accountable, one expert on open government says, and Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests are one of the more useful tools they have when looking out for the public’s interest.

At The Evening Sun, however, FOIL is an avenue rarely used when following the bureaucratic paper trail. In fact, the paper’s five-writer staff collectively has used it less than a dozen times in the last year – some newspapers use FOIL that many times in a week, or even a day.

That raises the question: As watchdogs of local government, does the Sun need to do more?

Tough questions