FOIAFest

February 25, 2022 | A panel of investigative journalists share their best tips for creating a FOIA strategy for each project. Panelists: Maria Zamuido (moderator), Samah Assad, Alejandra Cancino, Corey Johnson

February 25, 2022 | Excel’s crashing and Sheets is hanging. We’re gonna need a bigger database. Follow along while we learn how to load, sort, search and join data in SQLite in this introductory tutorial. Data demos walk you through the technical steps of working with data. We’ll use browser-based […]

February 25, 2022 | This session will cover how to file an appeal with the Public Access Counselor and what binding opinions issued in 2021 mean for FOIA filers going forward. Why are binding opinions so rare? And, even if a binding opinion is issued — do agencies always comply? […]

February 25, 2022 | Journalists seek public records to better understand the issues stemmed from government policies and decision-making and some of those investigations have led to real change. But more newsrooms are learning it’s not about the data that results in this type of impact, but how the people […]

February 25, 2022 | SUMMARY Panelists (from left to right): Bryan Zarou (moderator), Sarah Staudt, Merrick Wayne, Jonah

February 25, 2022 | Chicago is experiencing an affordable housing crisis, exacerbated by the pandemic and rising rent prices. We’ll explain the history of Chicago’s housing segregation, the displacement of people of color from gentrifying communities and legal ways in which Black Chicagoans have been kept from neighborhoods. Panelists: Ben […]

February 25, 2022 | Turning document-heavy stories into compelling narratives for the ear is tough. It involves lots of planning (storyboarding!), and thinking creatively. The team behind the Somebody podcast breaks down how they turned 80+ FOIAs into a riveting award-winning podcast. Panelists: Alison Flowers, Sam Stecklow, Bill Healy, Shapearl […]

February 25, 2022 | Resources and leads for investigating algorithms in society. Panelists: Grace Lee, Daniel Trelli, Nick Diakopoulos, Amanda Vinicky (moderator)

February 25, 2022 | Sure, there’s a lot of public information about health care. Hospital rankings. Community vaccination rates. Patient demographics. But during the pandemic, some of the best kind of data and public records that would give the public a deeper look into what’s happening has been out of […]

February 25, 2022 | All aspects of the education systems across the country have been hard-hit by the pandemic. COVID exacerbated new and existing issues, unions and school board tensions have been at an all-time high, educators uncertain of their career plans and parents and students have been left to […]