Sunshine Week is March 11-17, 2007

During this week media students should learn about the importance of keeping government meetings and records open to the public. Whether you are in a Broadcast Production or Broadcast Journalism Class, please let your students know about Sunshine Week and try to have a discussion or lesson about this important First Amendment Issue. It's a critical issue for broadcasters.

Please celebrate Sunshine Week in your classes - and let RTNDF know about it. If you have a weekly news program, please include at least an announcement of Sunshine Week in your broadcast. Consider having a Sunshine Week project for your students. RTNDF and our funder, the Knight Foundation, are sponsors of Sunshine Week. Please let RTNDF know about your efforts by contacting Carol Knopes, 202-467-5215 or carolk@rtndf.org.

Resources:
1. Check www.sunshineweek.org. There's lots of information there and a publication about Sunshine Laws (called "Bright Ideas") is at http://www.sunshineweek.org/sunshineweek/brightideas07.

2. One of the central issues of Sunshine Week is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that lets citizens request information from the government. To learn about FOI requests, go to www.newsu.org (that's the Poynter online journalism school). Sign on and go to the Freedom of Information lesson. This class has an FOI scavenger hunt you can use with your students (though it's mostly about newspaper reporting, the same skills apply), some ideas for stories (such as school bus safety in your school district) and a step-by-step guide to writing a FOI request.

3. Finally, winners of the STN First Amendment PSA Contest should air on Channel One during Sunshine Week. These are on general First Amendment topics, but could be a springboard to talk about more specific Sunshine Week topics.

Here are a few FOI topics that your students might check out:

  • Learning about health code violations in your school cafeteria
  • Finding the street corner or road with the most accidents in your county
  • Getting Military Records of family members or school alumni
  • Finding out how much pollution local factories put in the air
  • Getting salaries of state officials

General First Amendment Teaching Sites: