The ASNE "Your Right to Know" project gives editors great flexibility to adapt suggestions to the styles and needs of their newspapers. In general, editors are asked to set aside Independence Day week to celebrate our freedoms under the First Amendment in a visible way that will reach readers.

There are no rules for achieving this goal, only guidelines for you to use as you think best for your newspaper.

• During the week, editors are asked to use the "Your Right to Know" logo on various stories that readers see in their local newspapers because of the federal Freedom of Information Act and state Sunshine laws. A suggested logo is provided in this package.
• You are asked to please carry a box explaining in one or two sentences the reason to celebrate the people's right to information. Such an explanation is needed daily because readership is episodic. Examples of such an explanation are provided in the packet.
• ASNE suggests you start the week with an introductory story or column. You may use any of the guest columns in the package or write your own. Newspapers are asked to wind up the week with an editorial or column calling attention to a few particularly important stories made possible during the year because of the First Amendment. You’ll also find cartoons you may print intact or use to trigger ideas from your own cartoonists.

Following are various approaches taken by editors in the model project in Florida where newspapers have joined together on "Your Right to Know" week for the past two years with much success. In the packet, you also will find examples of the types of stories available under federal FOIA and state open-government laws.

During the Florida project, newspapers adapted the project to their own pages. Essentially, there were four methods:

1. Some newspapers used the logo on various stories during the week, never using it on every story from a particular day because there were so many, but often enough to let the readers — and editors and reporters — know the important types of stories available only because of open records or open meetings laws.
2. Other newspapers ran a brief with the logo on the front pages of national or local sections and named the major stories available that day because of right-to-know laws.
3. A few newspapers used the logo on every story that was a direct result of a meeting or record mandated by law to be open. Those newspapers discovered there were more stories than expected. The Tampa Tribune, for example, identified 145 such stories during the week.
4. Some newspapers put the logo on editorials and columns about the public's right to know but did not identify specific news stories.