#FOI
September 22nd, 2022 • Quill Archives
Former media relations head: Restrictions tightened on CDC reporting long before the pandemic
The last three to four decades have seen a surge in restrictions in public agencies, businesses and others banning employees from contact with reporters without the authorities’ oversight. To better understand where we are and how we got to this point, Kathryn Foxhall, vice chair of the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee, spoke with Glen Nowak, a former media relations head at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and now associate dean for research and graduate studies, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia.
March 9th, 2022 • Featured, Quill Archives, Freedom of Information
Declining fulfillment typifies today’s FOIA. Here’s why.
(image credit: www.epictop10.com) Many a great story has come out of Freedom of Information Act findings. At the same time, many a story doesn’t get written because the requested documents don’t arrive by deadline – if at all. And the two-year-old pandemic is worsening response times.
August 27th, 2021 • Featured, Quill Archives
Is Congress threatening press freedom by intimidating carriers?
Since government can’t censor news content, can it control it indirectly through threats and intimidation? A congressional inquiry this year led by Democrats hinted at it and attempted to examine whether conservative news media were responsible for inciting violence. The representatives said they were just asking questions.
April 8th, 2021 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives
Understanding Shield Law
This feature celebrates one of SPJ’s four guiding principals: We are fighters for the First Amendment. You’ve written a story that embarrassed someone who now wants the name of your protected source. Or perhaps a trial judge demands you testify and spill all.
November 12th, 2020 • Featured, Toolbox, Quill Archives, Digital Media Toolbox
Journalist’s Toolbox at 25
Victor Hernandez preaches the gospel of newsroom productivity, whether he’s working with his reporters in the Crosscut newsroom in Seattle or training journalists at conferences around the country. Hernandez’s philosophy is simple: Think trends and not tools when finding digital resources that can make you more productive.
January 24th, 2019 • Featured, Quill Blog
Bad week for journalism can have long-term impact
Journalism is wrapping up a bad week — a week of mischaracterizations in news reports that further tainted the credibility of the industry.
August 17th, 2018 • Featured, Journalist on Call
Why the #FreePress editorials were not enough
Thursday was a proud day for journalists. Hundreds of newspapers and other media organizations explained the important role they play in their communities or the country and asserted they are not “enemies of the people” as the president has frequently said.
June 12th, 2018 • Featured
Meet the victims of violence against journalists
“I was sitting there, choking. I couldn’t breathe.” Davis Winborne, a freelance photojournalist, remembers the night he and several other journalists were forcefully loaded into a van by police while covering a protest in St. Louis last September. “All of a sudden, there were no cops around us,” he said.
May 3rd, 2018 • Featured
World Press Freedom Day hits home
Today we celebrate the 25th annual World Press Freedom Day, a designation determined by the Paris-based United Nations Education and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and proclaimed in the U.N. General Assembly in 1993. It is a day when press freedom advocates and journalists come together to discuss issues of press freedom, including access to information and attacks on journalists.
April 16th, 2018 • Journalism Education
Student press freedom laws gain momentum
OLYMPIA, Washington – Washington became the 14th state to protect student journalists and their free speech rights by passing a New Voices bill on March 21. Gov. Jay Inslee signed SB5064, which states that student journalists should be free from school censorship if their reporting is not libelous, illegal or invading anyone’s privacy.
March 30th, 2018 • Featured
Isolation and harassment: My life as a female journalist in Pakistan
Working as a journalist in Pakistan is a difficult task, especially for a woman since it is considered a man’s domain in my country. Women are harassed and threatened regardless of their profession, but when you are a journalist, raising your voice about issues facing a dysfunctional society such as Pakistan, the threats become more acute.
March 14th, 2018 • Featured
When journalists aren’t trusted, corruption often follows
Vladimir Putin’s media consolidation efforts in the early 2000s began on well-prepared soil. The public’s trust in journalism as a profession in Russia had become so low — driven down by a distinct mixture of economic, political and cultural factors following the fall of the Soviet Union —that Putin’s efforts weren’t the cause for alarm one might otherwise expect.
March 12th, 2018 • Featured
How news literacy programs can help journalists earn back trust
In the fall of 2006, after spending nearly 35 years as a reporter, editor and then the editor of one of America’s largest daily newspapers, I left my job to help start the newest journalism school in the country. Even then, it was an act of audacious optimism.
March 12th, 2018 • Ten With...
Ten Questions with Jim Acosta
It was fewer than 10 days before Donald Trump’s inauguration when he berated CNN and its reporter, Jim Acosta, during a news conference at Trump Tower. “Quiet,” Trump told Acosta as the reporter tried to answer a question. “Don’t be rude, don’t be rude.”
January 9th, 2018 • Freedom of Information
Need FOIA help?
Filed a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, but ran into a few bumps? The Society of Professional Journalists wants to help.
November 2nd, 2017 • Quill Archives
Ten: with David Fahrenthold
Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold has covered a wide variety of topics in his 17 years at the newspaper. Like many journalists, he started as an intern before becoming a night cops reporter. He has since reported on the Washington, D.C.,
November 2nd, 2017 • Featured
Reimagining access rights under the First Amendment
We are living through an anti-openness renaissance. In June, on the eve of the special election in the Georgia Six, as it came to be known, Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff excluded a reporter for the conservative Washington Free Beacon from a campaign event, while Republican candidate Karen Handel gave the same treatment to a reporter for the liberal site ThinkProgress.
November 2nd, 2017 • Featured
Fixing FOI: Big ideas for a new era of transparency
Bring in the cats and dogs, and batten down the hatches: The forecast for government transparency calls for increasing clouds with a chance of heavy storms. This year the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation commissioned me to study the state of freedom of information in the United States, where it’s going and what can be done to improve it.
November 2nd, 2017 • Featured
Leveraging the predictive power of FOIA data
In 2010, when we started MuckRock, a non-profit website that helps newsrooms and journalists around the country file and track public records requests, one of our big bets was that if you filed a lot of FOIA requests, you’d get better at it.
November 2nd, 2017 • Quill Archives
Freelancers: Learn to overcome record request hurdles
“And who are you reporting for?” This the most dreaded question I hear as a freelancer, especially when I’m calling a public office to request records. I don’t fault anyone for asking it — it’s a natural question, and I’m sure I would ask it too, if the tables were turned.
February 23rd, 2017 • Quill Archives
Transparency And FOIA In The Age Of Trump
What does the Trump administration mean for freedom of information, public records, and general government accountability and transparency? Maybe the news media should shy away from the prediction business based on the not-too-stellar record of poll watching in 2016. No matter who is president, there’s an ever-increasing need for vigilance from journalists to safeguard the values of government transparency and openness underscored by the Freedom of Information Act and all public records laws.
February 23rd, 2017 • Quill Archives
Under Trump, A (Potentially) Bright Spot In A Foggy Landscape
President Donald Trump craves the spotlight. For that reason alone, he will not shut out the media over the next four years. He is too dependent on their attention. But he will continue to single out favorites for special treatment and bash those who cover him critically.
February 23rd, 2017 • Quill Archives
Let’s Teach Old Public Records Laws New Tricks
There’s good reason for existential angst about transparency in the Trump administration. Breaking with precedent, President Donald Trump declined to release his tax returns as a candidate. He ditched his press pool. And while Freedom of Information Act requests from other people provided him endless speech and tweet fodder during his fight for the presidency, he has shown no eagerness to return the favor and strengthen the law.
February 23rd, 2017 • Quill Archives
Trump To Make FOI Great Again
A Donald Trump presidency is the best thing that could have ever happened for freedom of information. We know from history that threats to democracy result in bolstered freedom of information. Excessive government secrecy following World War II led journalists to push for the Freedom of Information Act.
November 18th, 2016 • Quill Archives
Journalists, Let’s Not Get Checkmated
Scum. Liars. Disgusting. Corrupt. All words the public and journalists heard during what could very well be the most divisive election we’ve ever seen. While the U.S. presidential race may be over, the wounds are still healing. And while President-elect Donald Trump seems to be softening on some of his campaign promises, he has yet to back off the media.
February 17th, 2016 • Quill Archives, FOI Toolbox
FOI Toolbox
When Illinois journalist Susan Sarkauskas was denied access to a meeting of the Waubonsee Community College Board of Trustees last year, she could have filed a lawsuit alleging the board had violated the state’s Open Meetings Act. Instead, Sarkauskas simply wrote to the Illinois attorney general.
October 27th, 2015 • Quill Archives, From the President
From the President
The Freedom of Information Act will mark its 50th anniversary next summer. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill, passed unanimously by both houses of Congress, on July 4, 1966, amid much fanfare. Leaders of Sigma Delta Chi, the predecessor of SPJ, had worked Capitol Hill for 10 years to get a federal open records bill passed.
October 27th, 2015 • Quill Archives
Frack Attack: Fueling Secrecy
Deep in the grounds of Northeastern Pennsylvania, one of 66 oil and gas operators injects a high-pressure slurry of water and undisclosed chemicals into fractures in the rock, cracking the sediment and allowing oil to flow freely into one of 7,700 collecting wells.
October 27th, 2015 • Quill Archives
It’s (Not) Always Sunny in Paradise
Malia Zimmerman boarded the plane to American Samoa knowing this island visit would be anything but a vacation. The Hawaii-based reporter had been recruited by a former head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for a life-threatening mission: investigate slave labor at a garment factory in an area plagued by government corruption, police misconduct and federal government neglect.
August 18th, 2015 • Quill Archives, From the President
From the President
As EIJ15 draws closer, I am reflecting on the year behind me. It sounds more like lyrics to a Billy Joel song than a year as SPJ president: FBI, Ferguson, Charlie Hebdo, ISIS, the U.S. Forest Service, Brian Williams, Rolling Stone, Hillary Clinton and Indiana’s RFRA.
August 18th, 2015 • Quill Archives, Ten With...
Ten with Fiona Macleod
Beneath the hot sun, a group of small, colorfully billed Sub-Saharan birds perches on the backs of large mammals, feeding on ticks and other parasites. These birds are oxpeckers, the avian inspiration behind South African journalist Fiona Macleod’s environmental journalism watchdog organization of the same name.
August 17th, 2015 • Quill Archives, FOI Toolbox
FOI Toolbox
State open government laws and the federal Freedom of Information Act won’t help journalists seeking information directly from Native American tribal governments. As sovereign nations, the 566 federally recognized tribes operate apart from those statutes. Only because Maine’s unique statutory framework treats tribes as municipal governments does that state’s open records law apply when tribes communicate in their municipal capacities with other governments.
