Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks will become the junior U.S. senator from Maryland on Jan. 3, 2025. She already has an agenda, laid out during her successful campaign against former Gov. Larry Hogan, that focuses on issues including health care affordability, gun regulations, reproductive rights and high grocery prices.

With a Republican-controlled Senate, House and presidency set to take charge in January, there’s a limit to how much of her policy wish list has any chance of becoming reality over the next few years and it will be difficult to be a driving force effecting legislation as a freshman senator in the Democratic minority. There is, however, one noble ambition we would recommend the senator-elect set for herself that she can accomplish no matter who controls Congress.

Alsobrooks should aim to make media accessibility a hallmark of her time in the Senate, communicating to the public through frequent press conferences and interviews with the media, particularly those outlets here in her home state. During the upcoming two years when it’ll be difficult for Democrats to drive the national agenda, Maryland citizens will certainly need assurances their interests are protected and their state lobbied for — especially with the uncertainty regarding the second term of President-elect Donald Trump. And the best way to communicate that work of the people? Well, the Maryland press, of course.

Alsobrooks’ frequent appearances on national broadcast media outlets were a boon to her Senate campaign and may be her best tool while she’s in Congress to try to shift national opinion in favor of her party’s aims and against whatever controversial legislation the Republicans pursue. But these outlets won’t ask her about local issues relevant to Maryland — the Francis Scott Key Bridge rebuild, the state’s transportation budget woes, and whether the state may see the Chesapeake Bay become a national park, to name a few — that she might address with Maryland outlets. Alsobrooks can both learn what’s concerning Maryland voters and prove that those issues are on her agenda by talking to and taking questions from those outlets whose interest is what’s happening in Maryland’s 23 counties and Baltimore City.

Rest assured, there are local news outlets scattered throughout the state that would love a regular chance to interview their state’s new senator during her first term.

But it’s unfortunately become an increasingly popular approach among some politicians to avoid taking questions whenever possible.

It’s understandable. Journalists want to ask tough questions and there’s always the risk that politicians’ answers might come back to bite them. But shutting off the local media is hardly a fail-safe way to ward off scrutiny or protect one’s reputation. When President Joe Biden made himself largely inaccessible to the media — holding the fewest press conferences and interviews of any president since Ronald Reagan — the result was not less stress for the administration but greater scrutiny, concern and even reprobation from media outlets.

We don’t want that in Maryland.

Besides the political advantages of being communicative with local media, we hope that Alsobrooks and other lawmakers (we’re looking at you, too, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen) recognize the importance to our nation and democracy of government transparency, of voters being able to hear from their representatives and of the media being able to hold them accountable.

Alsobrooks has not had the best start when it comes to media accessibility since her election — it gave us pause when she was the only newly elected Maryland Democrat to Congress to miss the state delegation’s welcome event with the media at the U.S. Capitol on Monday. But a spokesperson for her campaign tells us she missed it to make a doctor’s appointment. That’s certainly understandable and Alsobrooks will have plenty of opportunities to make herself available to the media in the weeks before she takes office and thereafter.

Our call for Alsobrooks to be transparent with the media is not intended as criticism or a complaint about her communication throughout the campaign. Alsobrooks has a clean slate and the opportunity to decide what style of leadership she’ll pursue in the Senate. We’re writing to encourage an open dialogue between Alsobrooks and journalists that will be a service not only to the media, but to the senator herself and, most importantly, the Marylanders she represents. The next four years are sure to have enormous implications for our national and state politics, given the Republican majority in both houses of Congress and Trump’s reelection. We hope to hear a lot from her during that time.