Sunshine week is an annual event that highlights open government. From March 15 to 21 the tagline “Open government is good government” showcases freedom of the press.

This event has for the past 10 years worked to keep our public representatives accountable, through enforcing the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This transparency in government is imperative to the press because we’re the ones who ultimately come up against red tape trying to find this information.

According to the Global Right to Information Ratings, the US is 44th in the world for upholding the FOIA. As more and more countries start adopting this mentality, we keep falling behind. Just this week, the White House eliminated a part of the government transparency rule that will exempt them from record requests.

This issue also hits close to home to us at The Skyline View. We are constantly trying to find and retrieve information from our administration. We get the run around from many student service department members, and while the information will get to us from the public information office, it’s not timely and it’s not from the source. We want to write well informed articles for a well informed campus, and this stifles our ability to do so.

It’s normal for journalists to have to jump through hoops to get the information they need, but as students it’s hurtful for us to have to do so much to get what we need from our institution. When covering stories about the transfer center or financial aid, it would be important to us to be able to speak to sources within the centers who know the information first hand rather than email back and forth with the public information officer.

During this sunshine week, we look to keep our public officials on track, and this is one area that I feel like Skyline College can improve on. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to meet with the people in charge of these offices and learn the information first hand on our campus.