Networked journalism: distributed FoI requests
Posted by
Martin Stabe
on 11 November 2006 at 13:02
Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism, Networked Journalism
The Guardian’s “Bad Science” columnist, Ben Goldacre, is attempting a small experiment in distributed investigative journalism. Having had a Freedom of Information Act to Durham County Council rebuffed on cost grounds, he is calling on his readers to obtain the data piecemeal through lots of smaller, individual requests.
It’s a nice idea, especially since the government plans to make it easier to reject journalists’ FoI requests on cost grounds.
There’s just one small problem: The Government anticipated this tactic when preparing the legislation. Section (12)(4)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act allows public bodies to treat multiple requests that are made “by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign” as though they were a single request. I fear, therefore, that the avalanche of requests the column is likely to generate will be rejected in much the same way as Goldacre’s original request.
Let’s hope nobody at Durham County Council read Goldacre’s column before the requests start pouring in!
The case also nicely illustrates the danger of the government’s proposals to change the FOI fees regime. If the government has its way, the power to aggregate requests in this way would be extended to multiple requests o on multiple topics made by people from the same organisation, making it much easier to reject requests on cost grounds.
The same exemption that I suspect will scupper Goldacre’s plan could in future be used to prevent all the reporters at the Northern Echo from using the FOIA to ask questions of Durham Council more than once or twice a quarter.
Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism, Networked Journalism
