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Contact the Sunshine Chair in your state
Purpose and Goals
Project Sunshine is most important and visible to the people who
need it the most - working reporters and editors.
Project Sunshine focuses the attention of SPJ chapters and leaders
on Freedom of Information problems, issues, needs and solutions at the local,
chapter and state level. State sunshine chairs also are leaders in national
access debates.
By taking the lead, initiating organization and collaboration
at the chapter and-state level, areas of great and visible need are addressed.
It's also the area in which Project Sunshine has the greatest impact.
Goals of Project Sunshine
—Organize state and local FOI efforts
— Turn that organization into a local, state and national network that can
be mobilized for any access battle
— Increase membership, renew the commitment to FOI, promote SPJ
— Raise money needed to support those efforts
State Sunshine Chair Job Description
—Be the point person for SPJ in each state.
—Be a spokesperson for local/state FOI issues and problems. Make your presence
known to assigning editors, editorial writers and government reporters to
be quoted.
— Build a team. Organize and chair SPJ FOI efforts in your state. Convene
FOI committee chairs, officers of chapters and other interested parties such
as press association and FOI coalitions to define a mission.
— Represent SPJ in your state and/or take charge of an ad hoc coalition.
— Encourage, delegate or organize provocative chapter programs that focus
attention on FOI issues.
— Encourage and/or assign coverage of FOI matters, including your work, in
chapter newsletters, press or broadcast association bulletins.
— Track or supervise the tracking of SPJ efforts, both gains and losses.
— Try to identify sources of funds or grants to sustain FOI efforts. Look
for allies to help finance your needs and don't be afraid to ask chapter leaders
for fund-raising support.
— Funnel your state information to the national FOI committee chair as well
as Quill editors so that wins and losses across the country are well documented.
History of Project Sunshine
Project Sunshine is a program of the Society of Professional Journalists
initiated to focus attention and energy on problems of steadily-eroding access
to national, state and local government.
Since it began in 1990, Sunshine's principal goal has been to
identify threats to public access and government and to organize efforts to
resist those threats. In states where Freedom of Information coalitions exist,
Sunshine's goal is to organize and mobilize SPJ resources to assist those efforts.
Using grants from the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation and The Freedom
Forum, Project Sunshine produced and made available model Sunshine laws, covering
open meetings and public records including electronically-stored information.
SPJ also has sponsored national Sunshine conferences at which state Sunshine
chairs were briefed on impending threats.
Project Sunshine was organized on a state-by-state model because
access problems often are unique to specific states. Its 50 volunteer chairs,
therefore, are free to set an agenda to specific state needs.
Sunshine chairs should be positioned to learn about problems and
alert other SPJ leaders or allied groups.
At its core, Sunshine is a team-building program aimed at establishing
a state network of FOI resources to focus attention on the access problem of
the hour. That network often is called into service to work on other immediate
problems, including access problems common to campus press.
Click here to contact the Project Sunshine Chair in your state.
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Project Sunshine
Information
Project Chairs
A Winning Strategy
Freedom of Information
About/History
FOI Alerts
News/Articles
Covering Prisons
Project Sunshine: Find FOI Help
Accessing Government Records
Shield Law Campaign
FOI Audit Tookit | PDF
Anti-SLAPP: Protect Free Speech
Official Secrets Act bill
FOI Groups
Annual FOI Reports
FOI Committee Roster
Links/Resources
Message Board
FOI FYI:
SPJ's FOI Committee Blog
• Should presidential debates be open to real questions?
• Texas high school principal censors paper over anti-gun editorial
• 'He never gets a break from the mean-spirited liberal media'
FOI Committee
This committee is the watchdog of press freedoms across the nation. It relies upon a network of volunteers in each state organized under Project Sunshine. These SPJ members are on the front lines for assaults to the First Amendment and when lawmakers attempt to restrict the public's access to documents and the government's business. The committee often is called upon to intervene in instances where the media is restricted.
Freedom of Information Committee Chair
David Cuillier
Assistant Professor
Department of Journalism
University of Arizona
Marshall Building, Room 323
Tucson, AZ 85721-0158
Work: 520/626-9694
Fax: 520/621-7557
E-mail
Bio (click to expand)
David Cuillier, a former newspaper reporter and editor, is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Arizona. He researches public attitudes toward freedom of information and is one of the SPJ newsroom trainers for acquiring government documents.
Joe Adams, vice chair
Editorial writer
The Florida Times-Union
One Riverside Avenue
Jacksonville, FL 32202
Work: 904-359-4534
Fax: 904-359-4390
E-mail
Bio (click to expand)
Joe Adams is an editorial writer at The Florida Times-Union and author of The Florida Public Records Handbook published by the First Amendment Foundation in Tallahassee.
Eight universities in Florida have used the book as a textbook, the only one of its kind in the nation, and more than 1,000 journalists have attended his workshops on how to use public records for success. He is the recipient of the national 2007 Eugene S. Pulliam First Amendment Award sponsored by the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation and has earned two national Sunshine Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists. In December 2000, Presstime magazine profiled him as one of the top 20 under 40 newspaper industry professionals to watch in the future.
As an editorial writer, Adams has received awards from the Florida Press Club, Florida Society of Newspaper Editors and the Society of Professional Journalists. His year of public records research of the Jacksonville City Council uncovered widespread open meetings abuses. The resulting work by Adams and the newsroom inspired a grand jury probe and prompted the council in 2007 to create the state's first known local ordinance to ensure better compliance with Florida's Sunshine Law. He is originator of the www.iDigAnswers.com Web site about Florida FOI news and public records use.
Adams is founder and past coordinator of Times-Union University, the Jacksonville newspaper's newsroom training program, and is also former director of the National Newspaper Diversity Job Bank on the Internet. He also taught information gathering for two years as an adjunct professor at the University of North Florida.
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