LoginShining a light on the inner workings of government is more important than ever
Sunshine week is held every year to raise awareness about open records and public access to information about government. | Graphic courtesy sunshineweek.org
Democracy in the United States is in trouble. According to the 2026 Democracy Report, produced by thousands of scholars and experts around the world for the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-DEM), “The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history.” Civil rights, equality before the law and freedom of expression and the media in the U.S. are at their lowest level in 60 years, the report finds.
The press is under tremendous pressure from the Trump administration, which is cutting off access to journalists, suing media organizations that produce critical stories, and demanding that national news organizations toe the administration’s line.
Meanwhile, at the state and local level, news coverage is shrinking.
In Wisconsin, which has a proud tradition of public access to government and open records, we’re experiencing a contraction in local news coverage and, recently, the temporary shutdown and uncertain future of WisconsinEye, which offers CSPAN-like video coverage of the state Legislature.
A bill banning Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAAP) that passed the Wisconsin Assembly died on Tuesday in the Wisconsin Senate, leaving media organizations vulnerable to lawsuits designed to discourage news coverage and silence free speech. Now-state Sen. Cory Tomczyk filed a SLAPP suit against the Wasau Pilot & Review back in 2021, after the news outlet reported he was overheard using an anti-gay slur. Although the news outlet prevailed, legal expenses took a heavy toll, driving the publisher to the brink of bankruptcy.
The fight to keep government open and accountable to the public is never-ending. Just this week, a bill that awards $14.6 million in taxpayer funds annually to the University of Wisconsin athletic department and sets rules for sponsorship deals by UW athletes also creates a sweeping exemption for UW athletics from the state’s open records law — shielding all revenue, spending and financial records within the UW athletic department from public view.
That kind of secrecy about the use of public funds violates public trust. So does the exemption from public records law the Legislature drafted for itself, allowing state lawmakers to delete emails to avoid turning them over to journalists and members of the public who want to know whose interests their representatives are serving.
This week is Sunshine Week, the annual collaboration among journalists and civic groups around the country to highlight the importance of public records and open government.
Here at the Examiner, we sent out a few special newsletters this week on our reporters’ use of open records requests to investigate government activities, from Isiah Holmes’ reporting on police officers who misused surveillance technology to spy on their romantic partners to an award-winning story by Andrew Kennard and Frank Zufall about the policy of shredding mail from attorneys to their clients in Wisconsin prisons.
The Kennard-Zufall story was one of 12 by Examiner staff that the Milwaukee Press Club announced this week won top-three journalism honors, with gold, silver and bronze winners to be announced in May.
We have encountered high fees and long delays in some of our records requests, but our reporters persist. Just this week, Zufall, a Criminal Justice Project fellow, finally received a response from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to a Freedom of Information request he made in February 2025. The request was part of his reporting on a new public defender service the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is creating, citing unspecified complaints about the Wisconsin Public Defender. Stay tuned for more on that story.
We don’t do this work in a vacuum.
On Thursday night, journalists and engaged citizens gathered to honor this year’s recipients of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council Openness in Government Awards.Wisconsin Watch reporter Tom Kerscher and the group Midwest Environmental Advocates were each honored for their work exposing the secrecy surrounding the development of massive data centers.
“The idea that tech companies whose goal is to learn everything about us are coming into the state and trying to prevent us from learning anything about them, it really has become a politically toxic issue for them,” said Michael Grief, an attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates. MEA received its award for lawsuits the group filed challenging the secrecy surrounding a data center project in Racine and against the state Public Service Commission, contesting the “trade secret” status of energy demand data for Meta’s proposed data center in Beaver Dam.
Kertscher’s investigation exposed four projects in which local officials signed nondisclosure agreements with companies, much to the consternation of their constituents.
Data centers are a growing concern for the public, and we need to know about the deals to build these giant facilities.
Here at the Examiner we are proud to stand with other Wisconsin journalists and nonprofits fighting for open records and public access to government.
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