E-Media Tidbits

sunshineweek.org Sunshine Week, a time when many news organizations highlight open-government issues, is Mar. 11-17.

Here it comes again, my favorite journalistic time of year. March 11-17 is Sunshine Week, a time for "newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, Web sites and others [to] continue a dialogue about the importance of open government to the public" (according to the history page).

In practice, this means: "Participating daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, online sites, and radio and television broadcasters run editorials, op-ed columns, editorial cartoons, public forums, and news and feature stories that drive public discussion about why open government is important to everyone, not just to journalists."

The Sunshine Week weblog is a good place to keep up with related coverage and initiatives. Here's the feed link.

It strikes me that online, conversational, collaborative, and social media are particularly well suited to the goals of Sunshine Week. So I'd like to hear from Tidbits readers: What are you doing online for Sunshine Week? Please comment below with your projects, and include a link where we can find your project when it's online.

Also: What would you like to see online for Sunshine Week? What hasn't been done yet (or done well) that could work? For instance, I think issue-focused wikis might be a great tool to engage your communities and governments collaboratively in open-government issues, but I haven't seen that done yet for this specific purpose. Ditto for e-learning or gaming approaches to engage and educate. Speak up with your ideas.

And also: What do you think are the main pitfalls or challenges of online media for Sunshine Week activities? I know in the last couple of years most of what I've seen news organizations produce are major print or broadcast features that are posted online mainly as shovelware, with little attempt to involve the community directly online. To be fair, I realize that's mainly what the official Sunshine Week site asks for -- but you don't have to limit your project that way. In your news organization, what would be the major challenges to going beyond shovelware for Sunshine Week?

On a related note, on Mar. 12, OpenTheGovernment.org will live-Webcast its conference at the National Press Club: Closed Doors; Open Democracies? They've got an impressive speaker lineup so far.