As the title suggests, the Media Law lecture we had today was about the Freedom of Information Act. This is an important tool for a journalist especially when trying to get a news story that no one else has got e.g. 3rd year Journalism student at Winchester Julie Cordier made an FoI request to the Police force/service about officers having previous convictions. This is a great piece of journalism and the results of the request can be found here on the WINOL news bulletin from 19th October: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQvOOPKUbJo
This story came out of nothing, unlike a lot of other news stories, which are first reported by one news outlet and then just regurgitated by other news organisations.
After Chris went over some of the stuff we had covered in previous weeks, he showed us a video of the journalist Matthew Davis talking about the Freedom of Information Act (FoI A) and why it is so useful, this is what he said, The FoI A gives the power to ask questions to companies/organisations etc and if no answers are given, then you can take the company/organisation to a tribunal.
In order to get the best results from your request, you must use the correct language (the language the company/organisation you are asking would use) and the best questions to ask are short/simple questions.
It is best to get comparative data e.g. from more than 3 years, this will give you a good picture of the trends.
When deciding what topic you want to investigate, use your own knowledge e.g. for me it would be good to investigate something to do with football because I can use my own knowledge during the investigation.
Matthew Davis has conducted many investigations using the FoI A, including a request to NHS hospitals asking them about the insurance that hospitals needed (in the event of negligence). He drew up a list of the worst hospitals in Britain based on the data he had collected.
This method of collecting information is easy, cheap and is pure journalism because you can make a news story from nothing and without his investigating, this list might not have been published. However the Act says that only certain information is accessible, information, or records of decisions, which have been written down or electronically recorded. The problem with this is that once officials realise that the stuff they record will be open to public scrutiny, they will be more likely to make the information they record inaccessible and/or be more careful when recording it.
The best thing about the FoI A is that the information must be disclosed, however sometimes companies/organisations say that it would cost them too much to get the data for you (even if you are willing to pay them).
The type of question you ask is also important e.g. it is likely that a journalist will get more information if they were to ask a question like "How many of your staff earn over £100,000?", instead of "How much do you pay your staff?". Asking a question like the latter may make them squirm a little and then hand you over to their Press Officer, who will probably tell you to go away or say that they will call back - and never do!
TB 2011
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