As we near the end of this year’s Sunshine Week, communities across the country are continuing to rely on their local newspaper to ensure public officials are not doing business in the dark.

This is becoming a difficult task due to the challenges facing the local news industry and also public officials doing their work in private.

This Sunshine Week, as with every other week of the year, we at The Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register pledge to do our best to ensure you and your neighbors are fully informed as to how your tax dollars are being spent, and how decisions made by local elected leaders impact you.

Your local newspaper needs your support. No other news outlet has, for generations, worked to inform you not just of the happenings in your community, but also how officials are handling the public’s business. We attend community meetings and do the digging that adds context to public actions.

Those of us doing this work understand its importance. But we’re fighting a battle every day. As the political climate has made it easier for politicians to pretend reporters are working against your best interests, those elected and other public officials have convinced themselves the public will no longer demand transparency and accountability. That’s simply wrong.

It would be nice to think we don’t need to worry about these things here in the Ohio Valley. But reality has slapped us in the face time and again. Without your community newspaper, there is very little to stop public entities from running amok.

Use this Sunshine Week as an opportunity to reflect: Without your local newspaper, how would you know what was happening in your schools, cities, counties or even state? Do you rely on the carefully crafted propaganda that’s being presented as news, or do you trust an entity that has faithfully served you for more than 150 years? We need your help to continue that work.