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Thanks for making Sunshine Week 2015 successful!

 
Here are some highlights from the successful Sunshine Week 2015. Thank you, everyone, for all of your input. Sunshine Week 2016 will be back March 13-19. Mark your calendar now!

Sunshine Week's 10th anniversary came to a successful close March 21. It was so well received that people have already expressed interest in Sunshine Week 2016, which will be March 13-19.  

Sunshine Week 2015, organized by ASNE and its co-sponsor, 
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, was an impressive and fruitful year. More than 500 participants (and still counting: see http://sunshineweek.rcfp.org/sw-participants/ for the growing list) produced high-impact, creative work, and nonstop social media buzz spread sunshine across the nation regardless of the weather.

The
@SunshineWeek Twitter account picked up more than 270 new followers in March alone and garnered some 351 mentions. The biggest traffic on Twitter came under the #SunshineWeek hashtag, which was used to highlight participants' work, as well as to exclaim support for the effort and open government in general. The Sunshine Week Facebook page had a total reach of about 15,000 in March.

The unprecedented reporting package from The Associated Press, The McClatchy Company, USA TODAY and Gannett Co., Inc., helped publicize the importance of open government and freedom of information. Provided to everyone free of charge, the news reporting and state-by-state breakdown, as well as the essay by AP President Gary Pruitt, timeline graphic and video, allowed strong Sunshine Week coverage in print and online publications around the nation. This demonstrates how important the contributions of major news organizations are in the success of Sunshine Week.

In addition to the reporting package, the op-ed by Eric Newton, senior adviser to the president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and all of the impressive contributions, including numerous opinion columns, editorial cartoons and other resources on the Sunshine Week website, helped us garner coverage from Alaska to Guam. There was also great participation by state press associations, trade groups and FOI/First Amendment coalitions, which galvanized their members to action, culled examples of their outstanding work and presented awards for both the heroes and anti-heroes of open government.

 
Sunshine Week 2015 was made possible by the generosity of the Knight Foundation, Bloomberg, and the Gridiron Club and Foundation.

Click here for more highlights. 

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