Sunshine Week

Sunshine Week

Logo for Sunshine Week with a government dome atop a file folder and a sun, text reads:

We are featuring amazing examples of investigative journalism by our news media members that demonstrate the ideals of Sunshine Week in action!Sunshine Week is a nonpartisan collaboration among groups in the journalism, civic, education, government and private sectors that shines a light on the importance of public records and open government.


This year’s efforts are coordinated by Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications. And supported by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and thrive with a growing list of partners.



Sunshine Week is about the public’s right to know what its government is doing, and why.

Newspapers function as a neutral third party and are objective in their publishing of legal notices.Public notices in newspapers are a vital element of an open government. To assure governmental transparency, a record of its actions should be published in the most accessible format available to the public — newspapers.


MDDC aggregates the public notices of its members by aggregating them in one place, www.mddcnews.com, in the context of other news and information that interests the public. By providing this outlet for members and the public, MDDC is a guardian of open government and protector of our member papers’ role as a trusted, valuable community resource.

Recent investigative and transparency reporting from MDDC members

During Sunshine Week, MDDC will feature important investigative pieces that show the power of local reporting and transparency in our communities. Please tag your own work with #SunshineWeek2026 to be part of the conversation.


During Sunshine Week, MDDC will feature important investigative pieces that show the power of local reporting and transparency in our communities. Please tag your own work with #SunshineWeek2025 to be part of the conversation.


Nestled in the Western Maryland woodlands and accessible only by a winding, mile-long gravel driveway is a hunting lodge that has served as a rural escape for generations of “men of means.”


More than half a billion opioid pills permeated the Baltimore area between 2006 and 2019 as pharmaceutical companies targeted doctors with aggressive marketing campaigns, underplayed their products’ addictiveness and failed to block suspiciously large orders of painkillers, according to a trove of court records made public as part of the city’s lawsuit against some of America’s top drug companies.


The Baltimore Police Department has sent at least eight and perhaps as many as 20 expired misconduct cases to the civilian oversight body that renders disciplinary decisions, records obtained by The Baltimore Sun show.


People in Baltimore have been dying of overdoses at a rate never before seen in a major American city.

Amanda Vlakos had been living for years in rat-infested abandoned buildings in Baltimore, fighting an addiction to opioids, when she learned of a possible escape: a drug-treatment program that offered patients free housing.


Cristina Easton was 34 when she found out she miscarried her very first child. 

The first issue? She never even knew she was pregnant. 


In Carroll County, schools are required to notify parents if a student wishes to change their pronouns or otherwise identify as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth, according to guidelines published by Carroll County Public Schools (CCPS).


The last straw came in mid-August when a city employee was in a colleague’s office, kneeling at a table to fill out a receipt form.


A scathing internal report on the mishandling of a recent fire in Waldorf was leaked to the media, saying that it is a “miracle” that firefighters have not been seriously injured or killed in Charles County.


The already ailing central business district has an office vacancy rate of 22.4%. Read more about what JLL predicts will happen in the coming months.


When Rehoboth Beach’s then-city manager resigned from his post last year, Commissioner Patrick Gossett said the news left him “devastated.”


Four days before activists were set to hold an event in Wilmington highlighting police violence, a local detective from the city’s Real Time Crime Center sent an email to other city officials alerting them to the gathering.


On a Sunday in early April, Dimeka Thornton told relatives that if death came for her that day or the next, she was spiritually ready. She knew her heart was with God.


The maker of the renowned Gore-Tex waterproofing for outdoor gear polluted groundwater near two of its plants in Northeastern Maryland with a hazardous “forever chemical,” according to the Maryland Department of the Environment.

In 2014, W.L. Gore & Associates stopped using a harmful chemical called PFOA in the technology it makes for waterproofing raincoats, hiking boots and other gear.


After paying nearly $100,000 for a new deck and landscaping and never hearing from the contractor again, Angola resident Betty Barney said she soon learned dozens of other homeowners in the area had similar experiences.


Tension had been building inside Maryland’s maximum-security psychiatric hospital when the news began to circulate among employees: Scott Moran, their CEO, had been banished from the facility.


A Delaware nonprofit that provides emergency shelter and services to the homeless is in jeopardy of losing public funding amid a myriad of problems including deteriorating buildings, understaffing and asking clients to perform jobs without pay.


Since 2003, Erica Griswold, Anne Arundel’s register of wills indicted Friday for theft, has accrued $30K worth of contract violations, court records show.


The D.C. law firm that Mayor Brandon Scott hired to investigate safety practices after a sanitation worker died of heat stroke specializes in representing companies involved in mining, oil and gas, chemical manufacturing and other areas as they try to avoid running afoul of workplace safety laws.


When a 2-foot chunk of shoreline washed away from their waterfront property in Portsmouth, VA, the Berners decided it was time to prevent further erosion at their home of 15 years.


Unless a recent change in U.S. visa law is reversed, more than 15 priests from other countries who now serve in the Archdiocese of Baltimore may be forced to go home – uprooting their ministries and leaving parishes, schools and Catholic institutions scrambling.


On a warm August night, several dozen citizens from the Greater Washington Area, mostly African-American men, gather at the Busboys and Poets in the Southeast D.C. community of Anacostia. The topic of discussion: the ongoing challenges facing the formerly incarcerated and the need for more programs that support their successful reentry into society.


Last year, 527 people died from an overdose in Delaware.

And while that total marked a small year-over-year decrease for the first time in a decade, it’s still one of the highest number of deaths on record in Delaware. That sparked a sense of urgency to get millions of dollars from a new fund to support organizations on the front line.


Months before a Brandywine School District therapist was arrested on charges of raping a child, a parent and employees at Nemours Children’s Hospital raised concerns to district officials about the man, according to interviews and documents obtained by Delaware Online/The News Journal.


When Linda Johnson moved to the Bradford House Apartments in May 2000, things were different.


As a ship approaching the Chesapeake Bay Bridge experienced a steering problem last month, audio recently obtained by The Baltimore Sun shows that its pilot urgently requested that the Maryland Transportation Authority halt vehicle traffic on the span to avoid the remote possibility of a tragedy similar to the one that killed six people on the Francis Scott Key Bridge this spring.


Behind security gates and heavy metal doors at the Harford County Detention Center, messages of despair are scrawled on the cell walls.

The nurse who was supposed to be watching Tommy Wayne Pardew on a video monitor was on her third day of employment, still in orientation.

As Delaware begins to grapple with how to change funding of public education to improve student support, another major funding hurdle is emerging: deferred maintenance that is piling up at schools statewide.


The Baltimore County Council is set tonight to authorize $200,000 more in legal fees – on top of $350,000 already allocated – to handle a Public Information Act lawsuit seeking information about a secret payment made by the Johnny Olszewski administration to a retired firefighter.


Carbon dioxide emissions from Big Ten football team travel for regular-season conference games more than tripled in 2024 compared to 2023 after the addition of a quartet of West Coast schools, a Capital News Service analysis found.


Even before Nemata Kamara set foot on a plane bound for Saudi Arabia, she started to see a pattern of broken promises from the tour operators she trusted to get her from Maryland to Mecca.


Samantha Dello Buono watched a happy toddler splashing in front of her, not quite 2 years old, when her eyes returned to the soft skin of his inner arms. Already a mom of two, she hesitated. Toddlers will be toddlers, she cautioned, as her son looked up at her from the water, unable to elaborate.


The guys drove up to the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains that brisk November day, set up their tents, lugged coolers from the car and started a fire. That was one thing they had learned in the church — how to work together, heads down, focusing on the shared task.