EDITORIAL:

This week is Sunshine Week.

No, that doesn’t mean what you think it means. It has nothing to do with the weather.

No, this week is a celebration of the freedom of the press to watch over the affairs of government, an essential component of any democratic government.

Sunshine Week is an extension of Sunshine Day, created in 2002 by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors in response to moves by the state legislature there to weaken public records laws.

The movement spread across the nation to become what is officially known now as Sunshine Week.

So allow us to shed some sunshine on what this week means to us and to you.

We exist as a newspaper because the founding fathers of this country wanted us to. They guaranteed the freedom of the press with the First Amendment to the Constitution some 230 years ago.

Because those early framers of our country knew, even then, that government is susceptible to the powers of corruption. They understood that government officials can’t always be trusted to do the right thing.

The press is charged to keep all branches and operations of government honest, whether it is the chief executive, the legislature, the judiciary, the military or even governors like Eliot Spitzer.

Here at home, we serve a similar function when it comes to city government, school boards, police and fire.

Sometimes, the free flow of information doesn’t flow as freely as it should. Police officials may be reluctant or slow to tell us about a crime. City officials meet in private to discuss matters they should be discussing in the open.

And when we call them on it, remember, we are doing the work our founding fathers intended us to do.

That’s what Sunshine Week is all about. It’s about reminding officials that the people’s business needs to be done out in the open. A government that operates in secret is antithetical to democracy. The public has a right to know.

Sometimes it’s not easy to be that watchdog. The press is often criticized as either sensational, or unpatriotic, or liberal for exposing government abuses.

But the next time you read a story about government or government officials doing wrong, remember one thing before you curse the media.

It’s our job, to let the sunshine in.

For more information about Sunshine Week go to www.sunshineweek.org.