Here are some information and tips I learned during my time at FOIAfest that can help you begin your FOIA journey.
By Natalie Frazier
(Photo: City Bureau)
Hey y’all! I am Natalie Frazier, City Bureau’s Chicago Documenters Community Coordinator. I grew up in the Austin neighborhood and am currently a North Lawndale resident. I utilize my eclectic background in filmmaking, journalism, and food service to cultivate a rich Documenters community.
Last week I participated in Chicago Headline Club’s FOIAfest bootcamp and sessions—which City Bureau also sponsors and where many of our staff have presented. The bootcamp matches early career journalists with seasoned investigative reporters to train them in public record research. If you haven’t heard of FOIA (pronounced “foy-yah”), it’s an abbreviation for the Freedom of Information Act, laws which exist at the federal level and across all 50 states. Under these laws, records held by public agencies may be accessed by the public upon written request.
Accessing public records is important for everyone, especially community members who’ve been historically ignored. Information such as the building code violations of a local landlord and whether a new apartment developer in the neighborhood must build affordable units onsite can empower community members to fight for themselves and their neighbors.
This access is where FOIAfest comes in.
The sessions, which cover a plethora of FOIA-related topics such as environmental justice and segregation, give regular folks and new journalists information they need to ask for information that they’re entitled to.
Want to try sending a request?
Here’s a Sample FOIA Request Letter you can use as a template
This database lets you search Government Agencies to find out who has the information you need
Here’s Illinois’s Freedom of Information Act Statute so you can see what your rights are under the law
Here are some information and tips I learned during my time at FOIAfest that can help you begin your FOIA journey:
The Cook County Map Viewer is a smorgasbord of information on individual properties. Did you know that there’s a website where you can type in an address or pin of a property and see value, township, square footage and ownership history? If you’re a homeowner or renter you can find information about your own home and neighborhood.
FOIA fishing! Maya Dukmasova introduced me to this method. Request information from FOIA officers that is already publicly accessible and you might find even more detailed information. For example, Chicago building permit and inspection records are available in an online portal, however, FOIA requesting that department can help you get a more detailed angle on that information.
FOIA Officers are in fact people. The folks who request you pick up CD-roms from seedy offices and send documents with 80% of the information redacted are not evil bots. FOIAfest mentors and speakers did an excellent job of reiterating that FOIA officers are often swamped, working in understaffed offices and completely overwhelmed by the hundreds of incredibly vague or specific requests they are receiving. Reaching out to FOIA officers directly can help them help you get the information you need.
Metadata. This word, which I assumed was something a writer of the Mission Impossible series created, refers to high-level data that describes a data set in a programming code. If you’re not sure what information exists around an issue you care about you can FOIA for metadata to find out. Thanks to Debbie Marie-Brown, a reporter and Racial Justice Fellow at the Evanston RoundTable, for mentioning this concept!
Chicago’s journalism community is actually a community. It’s not lost on me that journalists that have changed lives and policies signed up to assist amateur journalists like myself. It is pretty incredible to know panelists and mentors such as Alejandra Cancino, Francisco Vara-Orta and Vernal Coleman are invested in young journalists and care about our voices and stories. Being able to message or call a reporting veteran with a question or an idea is invaluable. If you’re interested in FOIA, you should know there’s a community of folks out there ready to support.
Support City Bureau’s civic journalism model by becoming a recurring donor today.
To get monthly emails about our organizational culture and lessons learned from our programs, sign up for City Bureau’s Notebook newsletter.