HUDSON VALLEY – March 16th is the birthday of James Madison, the fourth President of the United States. It is also the midway point of the 2023 Sunshine Week, which occurs each year in mid-March to celebrate access to public information through Freedom of Information Laws that assist journalists in keeping the public informed. Sunshine Week began in 2005 as an initiative of the News Leaders Association and the Society of Professional Journalists.
President Madison was the primary author of the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment which was introduced in 1789 and passed in 1791. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
The Freedom of Information Laws were drafted by journalists in order to prevent governments from withholding information that the public has a right to know about. Future United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis recognized the importance of the media and the need for journalists to look for information that politicians would prefer to keep in the dark.
Brandeis, a New England attorney who was appointed to the United States Supreme Court in 1916, made his famous statement that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants” in a 1913 Harper’s Weekly article, entitled “What Publicity Can Do.” Brandeis was using “Sunshine” as a metaphor for the press. At the time, publicity was the practice of making information widely available to the public, including news media as the vehicle for the information. The “publicity” Brandeis wrote about in 1913 is known as transparency in the modern era.
Brandeis was a proponent of newspapers in his time and recognized the media and their need for access to information, as a way to keep the public abreast of goings on. “The individual citizen must in some way collect and spread the information,” he said. This was a call to arms for civic organizations that provided information to voters and, even more importantly, the press. Speaking at a time when the only way to reach large audiences on a regular basis was through print, Brandeis saw the press as potentially “the greatest agency of good government”–but only “if the people are sufficiently interested to desire it.”
Freedom of Information requests, commonly referred to as FOIL requests are one of the most important tools a journalist has, right behind a notebook and pen or pencil. Mid-Hudson News staffers use them regularly to obtain information governments don’t make readily available. “There are a few local governments in the Hudson Valley that are consistent in their attempts to keep certain information from the public,” said Todd Bender who runs the Dutchess County Bureau for Mid-Hudson News. “Despite what officials think they know, the law is on our side and occasionally we are forced to prove it, rather than the official just turning over the requested information, There’s no need to be adversarial about it – if the taxpayers funded something, there’s a really good chance they are entitled to know the details.” While Mid-Hudson News staff don’t necessarily use sunshine to find information, they have been known to shine a flashlight on situations.
Our readers are invited to join us in celebrating Sunshine Week 2023. More information on ways to participate can be found here.
