When The Times’ data journalist, George Greenwood, isn’t busy breaking scoops on the NHS or a £1.4 million payout to a Tory chairman, he can be found interrogating Freedom of Information Access (FOIA) requests – including one on none other than Love Island and Civil Servants.
While the government dubbed George’s access to the Love Island FOIA a ‘cyber-security risk’, he broke through their attempted blockades on FOIAs to pull this story.
Here, he gives you exclusive tips on how to turn an FOIA into a great news story:
How did you uncover *that* Love Island story?
The idea came when I saw from another FOIA story that someone had got hold of the slack channel names and knew from work that it’s possible to create custom emojis. So I put the request in for these. I had to fight an attempt for the department to claim these records could lead to a cyber security threat if released.
How do you find interesting ideas when yours have already come up on ‘What do they know‘?
Use sources, politicians, civil servants, charities, activist groups, friends and family even. Find tips on newsworthy problems or issues that are happening, then use FOIA to stand these up.
What are your top tips for ensuring your FOIA comes back as comprehensive as possible the first time?
Do your research, work out from information in the public domain whether information is likely to be held by public bodies, and which public bodies are likely to hold this information. Work out what your planned top lines would be, and what information you need to tell your story, and write your request with that clearly in mind.
What are the most common pitfalls you encounter with FOIAs and how do you best challenge them?
Always appeal where lazy or mendacious departments use silly exemptions to try to avoid doing a request. Do a test run of FOIs if you are going to dozens or hundreds of authority to check the story is true/good enough to spend time researching/ see if public bodies actually hold this stuff.
What makes a strong data-led FOIA story?
Numbers alone don’t make a good story. You need to have a strong human or narrative running at the top of your piece to make people want to read it. It is better to think of FOIA as one tool in your arsenal of telling people’s stories, rather than focusing of getting hold of “FOIA stories” as such.
Not sure what to do with FOIA data once it’s come back to you? Take some inspiration on how to present your data from these Instagram accounts.