Jennifer Preston Share

As Sunshine Week kicks off today, reminding us that we the people have the right to access public information, a new report sponsored by Knight Foundation warns that obtaining government records has become more difficult in the last four years at both the state and national level.

As the first social media editor at The New York Times in 2009, I had access to top-tier talent at Facebook to help experiment with this new platform to find and build audience for Times coverage all over the world. It worked. Other large news organizations and famous journalists that could scale national and international attention did too.

Newspaper publishers John S. and James L. Knight believed that informed and engaged communities are essential to a healthy democracy. Knight Foundation has lived that belief for decades as a leading supporter of journalism. As the industry has evolved, so has our approach, and we’ve expanded our support over the last 10 years to include the work of nonprofit news organizations emerging amid the disruption of the digital age.