An old mantra here in the newsroom is that while the public wants us to hold public agencies and officials accountable so they can read the information, they generally don't care about our plight to get the information.
In other words, you want to eat the sausage, not see it being made. Fair enough.
So it makes sense that we in the media would tout this week's "Sunshine Week" even though it likely won't provoke a water-cooler discussion at your workplace.
But when it comes to having access to information from your government, you should care. You pay for the operations of government at all levels. You have the right to know the details of government operations, including how your money is being spent.
Two ways we, and other journalists, routinely get information are through the national "Freedom of Information Act" and Missouri's open records/meetings law, known as the "Sunshine Law."
We've often "sunshined" information from local agencies, including the city, county, state and the public school district.
News services that we subscribe to, such as The Associated Press, routinely base news stories on sunshine requests of state agencies. That's how we and the AP have written stories detailing airplane travel (and the cost) by governors, among other things.
The open records laws are for everyone, not just the media. That's how you can go to the police station and request a copy of a wreck report or other police report. Want to know how much we're paying a public employee? Or how much an agency has spent to defend a lawsuit? You can get that, too.
The Sunshine Law also ensures that public bodies not only meet in public, but give the public advance notice of when and where the meetings will be held. It lets public bodies, such as the Jefferson City Council, hold closed-door "executive sessions" only to discuss things such as litigation or the hiring, firing or disciplining of employees.
Even then, they must disclose to the public the decisions they made in closed session.
Despite the state and national open records laws, government officials/agencies still aren't always excited to turn over public information.
Under former Gov. Jay Nixon's administration, for example, the public relations offices in state agencies were more tight-lipped than ever. Sometimes it seemed like it would be a Herculean effort for them to confirm that the sun rose on any given morning.
But open records laws give us power to fight for information for our readers. Without such laws, we would all be in the dark.
Want to file your own "sunshine" request? Here's a sample query to get you started: http://ago.mo.gov/missouri-law/sunshine-law/sample-language-forms/records-request-form