The shuttering of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer print version during Sunshine Week is a sad reminder of the trend in big city papers. Increasingly, they can’t afford to operate in paper form, and maybe won’t be able to in online-only versions — depending on how the dollars shake out. It’s distressing to imagine the fate of democratic institutions without investigative journalists digging into the operations of government and making their findings broadly known. Support government transparency projects in your neighborhood.

More Sunshine Week state newspaper reports of local government on the web.

Illinois: Public’s access to local data varies

Indiana: Indiana ranks next to last in online records

Maryland: Make transparency permanent Maryland government policy

New York: Sunshine Week: N.Y. seeks cohesion for Web sites

North Carolina: Are records really public?

Ohio: Ohio sunshine law updates online highlights release of the Attorney General’s, Ohio Sunshine Laws, Open Government Resource Manual 2009

Pennsylvania: Civil records free to download in Pennsylvania county

Wisconsin: Shedding light on government activity