Freedom of Information Day falls on March 16 this year, kicking off Sunshine Week, a national observance dedicated to the public’s right to access government records. At a moment when independent journalism faces mounting financial pressure and political hostility, the timing carries real weight.
Two hundred and fifty years into the American experiment, the free press remains one of democracy’s most essential and embattled institutions. That principle isn’t abstract. It plays out in courthouses, police departments, and legislative chambers every single day, often through the unglamorous work of records requests, legal filings, and persistent follow-up.
Vermont nonprofit outlet VTDigger is marking the occasion by asking readers to support that work directly. CEO Sky Barsch issued a public letter Monday calling on readers to donate and keep nonprofit journalism viable in the state. The appeal connects a funding pitch to something more fundamental: the argument that public records belong to the public, and that someone has to fight to make that true in practice.
Under Vermont’s Public Records Act, a public record includes anything produced in the course of public agency business, covering reports, emails, text messages, data, and social media posts, whether on government servers or private devices. The federal Freedom of Information Act extends similar protections at the national level. Both laws exist on paper. Making them work requires journalists willing to request, analyze, and when necessary, litigate.
VTDigger has been doing that work for more than fifteen years. The outlet built its reputation on an investigation into the EB-5 immigrant investor program, a sprawling fraud case that became a defining example of what watchdog journalism can accomplish at the local level. More recent reporting has examined how housing dollars have been spent since the pandemic, scrutinized police credibility through analysis of prosecutorial Brady letters, and investigated violations of internal police policies connected to the death of a young Rutland City officer.
None of that reporting happens without access to records, and access to records doesn’t happen without reporters willing to push back when agencies resist disclosure.
That friction matters. Government institutions don’t typically volunteer damaging information. Transparency requires pressure, and pressure requires resources. Nonprofit news organizations like VTDigger depend on reader support to sustain the legal and editorial infrastructure that makes accountability reporting possible. When that support erodes, so does the capacity to hold institutions accountable.
The culture conversation often centers on glamorous beats. Film premieres, gallery openings, music releases. But accountability journalism is a cultural institution too, one that shapes what communities know about themselves and who holds power over them. The press isn’t separate from the social fabric. It’s one of the threads holding it together, however worn that thread sometimes looks.
Freedom of Information Day exists as a reminder that transparency is a right, not a courtesy extended by institutions that feel like being generous. It requires active maintenance from journalists, lawyers, and informed readers. Sunshine Week, organized by news organizations and press freedom advocates across the country, pushes that message into public view once a year. The rest of the year, the work continues quietly.
For students at Dartmouth and on campuses across the country, this moment carries particular relevance. Journalism programs, student newspapers, and independent media all draw from the same democratic tradition that FOIA and public records laws are designed to protect. Understanding that tradition means understanding that the access we often take for granted was fought for and must be continually defended.
If you believe government information belongs to the people it governs, the most direct way to act on that belief is to support the outlets doing the work to make it available. VTDigger’s donation page is live. Other nonprofit newsrooms across the country are running similar appeals this week.
The alternative to a funded, functioning free press isn’t neutrality. It’s a vacuum filled by institutions with no accountability to anyone. That outcome benefits no one except the people who prefer to operate without scrutiny.
Sunshine Week lasts seven days. The need for what it represents doesn’t expire.
