The rights to freedom of expression and a free press are historically and inextricably linked. Today and in the future, these rights require as much, if not more, protection than ever before.

Pennsylvania celebrates Sunshine Week March 13-19, and there’s a great reason to choose this time.

Our fourth president, James Madison, wrote the Bill of Rights in 1791. He believed in freedom of the press, saying “and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable” .

Madison was born on March 16. Celebrating Sunshine Week on his birthday continues to honor the man who had the foresight to protect the press, the government’s watchdog.

Those of us in the media come together to support Sunshine Week, as it allows us to remind government officials that they are responsible for their actions. There are few things more important than holding our government to account. This accountability requires transparency. Left unchecked, an ineffective government can rob citizens not only of their hard-earned money, but of their very freedom.

My first job in the newspaper industry was as a reporter at the Tyrone, Pennsylvania, Daily Herald. On the first day I was sent to cover a meeting of the regional sewer authority board. Talk about a plum mission. After spending hours listening to five older men talk about sewage flows and sewer backups, I asked myself, “Who really wants to read about sewers?”

It turned out that everyone in Blair County needed to know what happened at that meeting. These five men discussed the possible construction of a new sewage treatment plant at the cost of millions of taxpayer dollars. Without newspaper coverage – without the freedom of the press and the Sunshine Act – taxpayers’ money would have been spent unchecked.

Informing the public, serving as a watchdog with the freedom to gather and disseminate information, is the essence of our fundamental freedoms.

Those of us who work in the media should never take the rights to freedom of expression or freedom of the press for granted. The success of any transparency initiative depends on the involvement of citizens. We have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. We don’t elect dictators in this country; we elect people who are supposed to represent our interests at all times.

Over the past 12 months, we have seen thousands of concerned citizens across our state attend city and school council meetings. This has led to greater involvement in local government, which also leads to better informed citizens and taxpayers. This action by the people is what forces transparency in government from the bottom up. Positive results come out of government when you have a proactive and informed electorate. The only way to have a truly informed and proactive electorate is to have a free and open press, a press allowed to do its job unhindered in order to inform voters about what elected officials are doing.

I try to attend local government meetings where I personally have my skin in the game. As a journalist and as a taxpayer, I want to know how my elected officials represent me and how they spend my tax money. I also want to know who my local elected officials are personally.

In the interests of transparency and open government, I call on all elected officials to make a sincere commitment to continue improving public access to government meetings and public documents. In Pennsylvania, by law, public notices are currently published in the official local newspaper. There are elected officials at local and state levels who are constantly trying to change this law. I’ll leave it to the reader to wonder why an elected leader wouldn’t want voters to know what’s going on in his own community, or behind the doors of the state capitol boardrooms, the county courthouse or the town hall.

In late January, I attended a township supervisors’ meeting in Cumberland Township, Adams County, where I informed the attorney that the township had violated the Pennsylvania Sunshine Act by not publicly announcing that supervisors had held several executive meetings since their last public meeting. While I didn’t believe the township was trying to hide anything from the public, even the smallest violations of the state’s Sunshine Act should be brought to light.

What can you do as citizens to protect the freedoms of speech and press guaranteed to you by the Constitution?

You, the readers, are taking the first step right now by buying and reading your local newspaper. I’ll tell you a secret: Yahoo, Facebook, Instagram, even CNN, don’t care what’s going on in your towns and cities. They won’t help you fight City Hall or fight for you if you think school taxes are too high. But the journalists from your local newspaper will listen to you and be present at the meetings to report on what you say and the reaction of your elected officials.

You must also be your own lawyer. Attend meetings of local borough council and township supervisors. Ask questions about how police resources are allocated and how your tax money is spent. It’s your money; you should want to know how it is spent.

With the official arrival of spring, we as a state and nation are finally trying to put the pandemic behind us. Sunshine Week is a very fitting time to look forward to the warmth of the times to come in an optimistic and transparent light.

Harry Hartman is publisher of the Gettysburg Times in Adams County. He is also Chairman of the Board of the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association.