Our lecture this week focused on the subject of the Freedom of Information Act, hereby referred to as the FOI. The lecture helped us understand what we could access using the FOI and also what restrictions there were on it, ironic, considering it is 'freedom' of information we are talking about here.
The FOI allows anyone to access documents and data held by organisations in the public sector; this being particularly useful for investigative journalists. Heather Brooke is a leading authority on the FOI and was part of the Daily Telegraph's investigation into expenses. Often FOI requests are put in for things that people believe to be true but without proof, it would often be defamation. Any person, not just a journalist, is entitled to be told when writing to an authority whether they hold any kinds of information. If the answer is yes, you can then ask for that information. For an example, you could write to the Dept. of Employment and ask them, "do you keep a record of what people are ill with?" and if the answer is yes, you might be able to do a 'Too Fat To Work' kind of Daily Mail story. A better example was when a journalist actually did put in a request to an education authority asking how much compensation they had paid for pupils injured. The sum turned out to be huge and suddenly you've got your hands on quite a big story, but it's the gamble you take with the FOI act, for every great story there's at least 10 rubbish ones from requests that went nowhere. Things like injuries in hospitals however can be absolutely hilarious apparently.
The stories you collect from the FOI act are all data based, the act is the key to the Aladdin's cave of news. Even in the Winter time when all news other than snows based news seems to stop, if you get your requests in early you can be writing stories about snow just in time for Christmas. 'Snow news is good news'. A large part of the act is however taken up by exemptions which prevent you from gaining certain information. Of course the Official Secrets Act means you cannot ask for information on the Army on the Secret Service (MI5, MI6 etc) because it would be detrimental to national security. Most organisations will attempt to stretch national security to breaking point in order to cover their own information under the act, "You can't have our information on how many employees have called in sick this year or the terrorists have won". You can also only ask for information that has been recorded so to get the information you need to make clever requests and hope you are not asking whilst under a sofa government, the kind that sits there not recording anything much. Confidentiality is also an issue as it always is, (see previous blogs), you cannot for example specifically ask for information on one person, 'I need information on whether Graham Marshall (me) has been attending lectures', would not be answered as it would breach common law confidentiality.
To put in a request it is best to find the freedom of information officer for that public authority, as each authority should have one. You then ask them "Under the FOI act, I want to know whether you keep information on..." and if they do have the information you can ask for it. If they respond saying "no can do, national security", you can make an appeal to the Information Commissioner and they will adjudicate often in the affirmative if the authority has made a foolish claim that you cannot have their information. Often though, if the authority says 'no can do, national security', it is probably better to rephrase your question until you get the information instead of starting a lengthy appeals process. The cost of them complying is also complicated as they will often say that they have the info but 'the cost of getting it is not justified', i.e. it is too expensive to give it to you. In the same way that national security is stretched to prevent you from getting certain information, the cost of complying is also stretched to prevent certain information from publication. In summary, National Security and Common Law Confidentiality are your main problems when trying to get a story from a FOI request.
Some tips:
Matt Davis has made quite a lot of money by selling off stories he has got from FOI requests to others so he is an authority on these requests and there are some extensive notes on his work in Chris' lecture notes. One of the stories he did revolved around an FOI request for the hospital league table of who has been sued the most. He sold this story to the Daily Mail which ran a headline like "THE WORST HOSPITALS IN BRITAIN" but which you could defend with the fair comment defence. A hospital top of the list of most sued could quite reasonably be considered as the worst by most right thinking people. The same thing happened about the movie Borat which provoked some quite angry reactions from some areas of both the press and the public. Matt Davis then asked the relevant department, "Have you received any complaints from Kazakhstan about the movie?". It turned out that the country was virtually declaring war and yet the story would never have been known without the FOI act. To get the information that you want you need to use their jargon; for example there are certain colloquial terms that do not apply to the bureaucrats that you have to deal with to get your information. You can't take no for an answer either, if for any reason they claim they can't give the information to you then just rephrase the question, you're dealing with bureaucrats who will do what they can to stop you from getting the information you want.
All the time you have an amazing amount of data collected on you, in hospital for example, the amount of data collected each time you go is vast, for this reason the Freedom of Information act is invaluable to journalists.
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