Kevin Hensley
After 3½ years as publisher/editor of The Graham Star, I trust that, by now, you have spent the first several days of this week knowingly celebrating National Sunshine Week.
In fact, chances are that you have shoved aside the possibility of pouring a tall one and dancing to an Irish jig this weekend in favor of filling your home with copy after copy of The Graham Star. You and your friends are just clamoring to pass around the room and discuss which version of 37 down on the crossword that you like best.
Hang on. I am being told that National Sunshine Week is as transparent in your brain as my (don’t say “love life,” don’t say “‘love life”), um, belief that you knew what it was.
I am willing to let your snafu go without much resistance, since the very essence of what we do in the field of journalism more often than not flies under the radar – which is ironic, since National Sunshine Week is about celebrating those who make sure things do not fly at a low altitude.
Let me try it from this angle: you are reading the latest, greatest edition of this 67-year publication (just humor me). Have the terms “Freedom of Information Act” or “open session” ever caused you to raise even an eyebrow (resist your temptation to do a Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson imitation) and question what in the world we are referring to?
It has? Good. Now we are getting somewhere.
The American Society of News Editors launched National Sunshine Week in 2005 and has partied all week in celebration since – even on deadline night! The Freedom of Information Act was instituted in 1967 to grant the public an opportunity to access government records (within reason – you do not really need to know what brand of tie President Joe Biden wore in his State of the Union address, do you? Come on).
Even our fourth president, James Madison, had the foresight to realize that open communication between the government and citizens would be crucial in both working hand-in-hand. As such, today would have been Madison’s 271st birthday – but instead of blowing out candles, we instead paid tribute by producing Vol. 68, No. 39 of Graham County’s hometown newspaper.
And, hey, I do not want to hear that The Graham Star is not hip with the times. Even the kiddos today can enjoy government transparency – we livestream meetings on our Facebook page, county-wide! Then we upload them to our YouTube account, forever to be preserved as the next selection in an automatically generated playlist that is preceded by the video of the bulldog riding the skateboard (how does he know when to kick his feet to keep it
rolling?) and that oddly interesting video of people building a pool in the middle of a forest.
Without government transparency, there is no accountability. When we gather the top news from a county commission meeting and compile it into an article for you to read, we do it not to fill space in what ultimately becomes either a fire-starter or liner for your parrot cage: we do it to inform. Admittedly, there have been challenges I have personally encountered over the years in getting full cooperation from government officials who do not trust the press.
Here’s a spoiler: We are not out to get you. We are doing our job. Journalism existed long before you and I came into this world – and it will be here when we are overshadowed by a tombstone. Do not let a few bad seeds ruin it for the rest of us good ones (I repeat this daily to myself, in reference to my love life … ah, never mind).
There is still work to be done, sadly. Though I have worked hard to prove to the people I live in the same county with that I am, in fact, not out to get them, there is still resistance at higher levels of government. Senate Bill 254 has just been filed in the N.C. General Assembly, which would grant public access to both state and local-level government employees’ disciplinary files. The era of the age-old “it’s personnel, can’t discuss it in open session” days may be finally coming to a close; voters (the public) deserve to know why someone they put their faith and trust in enough to mark in favor of them on a ballot really resigned.
Often, there is more to the story than what even we can dig up. S.B. 254 looks to change that.
So, enjoy the Sunshine. Enjoy it each time you tune in to a livestream. Each time you pick up a copy of this publication. We put our heart and souls into this product – all to keep you in the loop.
For there to be transparency, there must first be light.
For if there is no light, there is only darkness.
Kevin Hensley is the publisher/editor of The Graham Star. As a child, he could once recite all the presidents in the order they served. Fun fact: James Madison was once arrested for riding in a carriage on a Sunday – illegal at the time – and his cohort in the scheme? The third president, Thomas Jefferson. You know how he knew that? A Google search! (You thought he was going to say, “He made a Freedom of Information Act” request, didn’t you?)