OGIS Sets Up Shop at IRE

OGIS recently set up a pop-up shop, of sorts, on the West Coast offering one-on-one mini ombuds sessions with journalists and gathering ideas for improving the FOIA process.

I’m pleased to have represented OGIS at the annual conference of the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving investigative reporting.

The conference, June 26-29 in San Francisco, came on the heels of the inaugural meeting of the FOIA Advisory Committee, which is mandated with studying FOIA across the government and advising on ways to improve FOIA. The committee’s first meeting included brainstorming on legislative, policy and process changes to improve the FOIA process.

Journalists attending the IRE conference had some ideas for improving the process, which they shared with me and others at a session titled “Help Shape FOIA Reform & Join the #FOIAFriday Community.”

Several of the ideas include, in no particular order:

•  Increasing online posting of government records. The FOIA Advisory Committee thought increased proactive disclosure should be a priority—and several journalists and a media lawyer attending the IRE session agreed. “I think we should be moving to putting everything out there,” said Charles Ornstein, a senior reporter with ProPublica, who noted that the city of Oakland, CA, proactively posts its records online.
•  Completely exempting journalists from FOIA fees. Journalists are generally afforded media status for FOIA fee category purposes, meaning they pay no search or review fees, and pay duplication costs after the first 100 pages. Journalists are not granted fee waivers by virtue of holding press credentials—like any other requesters, journalists must meet analytical factors, including that the public interest is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government. That should change, said Djordje Padejski, innovation projects director at the JSK Journalism Fellowships program at Stanford University. “In many European countries, journalists are exempt from fees by default,” he said “The U.S. is seen as a leader on freedom of information issues and the fees should reflect that. I believe journalists should be exempt by default from paying fees.”
• Putting sanctions in the FOIA statute for violating the law. “How many FOIA officers have you seen demoted for violating the FOIA” asked Mr. Padejski. “Put teeth in the law; it’s their work to know the law.”

In addition to presenting on another panel titled “Free the Data,” during which I discussed best practices for database requests and the importance of FOIA Public Liaisons in the FOIA process, I also held 20-minute sessions in which journalists could ask for help with the FOIA process. I met with about a dozen journalists who asked for help on everything from filing a FOIA request to how to deal with a request that an agency had closed in error. A big thanks to IRE for asking me to be part of its conference. As I told many of the journalists I met with, Happy FOIAing!