Sunshine Week starts Sunday; here are resources, such as stories about delays getting records during the pandemic

Sunshine Week starts Sunday, March 14, so it's time to tell the public. The observance, coordinated by the News Leaders Association, is a celebration of open government and freedom of information, and an opportunity for news media to tout their role in both.

The Associated Press churns out Sunshine Week stories each year. AP's David A. Lieb reports, "A year after the first coronavirus shutdowns, public records have become harder to get in many U.S. states and cities. Governors, legislatures and local officials have suspended or ignored laws that set deadlines to respond to records requests. Many officials have cited obstacles for staff members who work from home or who are overwhelmed with crisis management. Some requests that used to take days or weeks now take months. New data shows that government agencies saw a six-fold increase last year in the time spent on records requests."

Click here to learn more or access a content toolkit with a special reporting package free for republishing. The Sunshine Week site has other tools, including op-eds, editorial cartoons, logos, story ideas, work from past Sunshine Weeks, a list of participants and a calendar of events.

Sunshine Week 2021 is made possible by an endowment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and by generous donations from the Gridiron Club and Foundation. For more information about Sunshine Week, visit sunshineweek.org. Follow Sunshine Week on Twitter and Facebook. You can find or create social-media posts by using the hashtag #SunshineWeek.