The Latest: NYT reporter's n-word resignation; Baron’s goodbye; 3 FOIA tips that work anywhere

The Latest: Covering today, informing tomorrow

March 1, 2021

■ Ex-journalist says harassment by Cuomo admin forced her to quit job (New York Post) / Cuomo accused of pressuring reporter to 'eat whole sausage' in video (New York Post)

■ Mike Pompeo embraces New York Times calling him 'worst secretary of state’ (The Wrap) / The little magazine that incubated Team Biden (New York Times)

■ Marty Baron on his response to systemic racism in The Washington Post newsroom, ‘I would say that I should have tried to do more over the course of my time here and do it more quickly’ (Washington Post) / How Marty Baron and Jeff Bezos remade The Washington Post (New York Times)

■ In the matter of their missing bonuses, retired McClatchy executives are waiting to see the first penny (Poynter)

■ Nearly half of digital subscribers are ‘zombies,’ Medill analysis finds (Local News Initiative) / The ■ Arizona Republic considers killing 'zombies' a staple of its digital subscription strategy (Better News)

■ Our food critic explains why The Post and Courier still isn't running restaurant reviews (The Post and Courier)

■ ‘This is no joke’: WBZ reporter shares COVID-19 experience (Boston.com) / ’Reporters, what story were you working on this week last year that got killed because it became suddenly irrelevant? I wrote an entire story about the politics of the Amtrak Quiet Car, which would have been great except everyone stopped taking trains the very day it was filed.’ (Maura Judkis) / A year into the pandemic, Nat Geo photographers turn their lenses on pets (National Geographic)

Today’s journalists need to check more than their facts. In this cut-and-paste digital world, journalists also need to check their rights. Join the National Press Club Journalism Institute for an overview of copyright perils and solutions, presented by three lawyers with the Media & Entertainment Law Group from the Washington, D.C. office of Ballard Spahr LLP: Chuck Tobin, Alia Smith and Mara Gassmann.

Participants will leave the program with:

Best practices for the “fair use” of unlicensed work
Tips to calibrate how much is too much when quoting or using someone else’s work
Ways to quickly determine rights to an image and how to license it, even via social media

Registration is now open for this program, which will take place online from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, March 31, 2021.

3 tips on accessing public records from home

Public records are like the mirepoix of journalism: They serve as the base of a complex story.

With documents in hand, reporters can uncover everything from how a gas company undermined the city of Austin’s climate change proposal to whether certain public figures have paid their taxes.

We asked Mark Walker, Freedom of Information Act researcher at The New York Times Washington Bureau, for his recommendations on how to obtain documents in the work-from-home era.

What are your top three tips for journalists accessing public records databases remotely?

Walker: Think like a Freedom of Information Act officer. Be specific. Be clear. Be human.

The request must “reasonably describe” the records. It should enable “a professional employee of the agency who is familiar with the subject area of the request to locate the record with a reasonable amount of effort.”

Always appeal your public records requests. Even when you get records released to you, file an appeal and try to get more.

Do your homework upfront. Know what you’re looking for and know exactly the name of what you are asking for. Take the time to learn how, where and why that information is kept.

What are the common mistakes to avoid when requesting public documents?

Walker: A common mistake I see when making public records requests relates more to the Freedom of Information Act requests sent to the federal government. A common mistake is using the fact that you’re a journalist to argue for expedited processing. Each federal agency has its sort of standards for granting expedited processing on FOIA requests.

For example, the Department of Justice states what two circumstances they will approve expedited processing: First, whenever a requester establishes that the request involves a “loss of substantial due process rights” or second when the request concerns “[a] matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exist possible questions about the government’s integrity which affect public confidence.”

A trick I use to try to get expedited processing approved is to tie my request to a concrete event in the near future.

If a journalist is denied access to a document that should be public, what do you recommend?

Walker: Try getting on the phone to better understand why your request was denied. It could be as simple as a problem with the way the request was crafted. Missing a word or poor wording could be the difference between getting a tranche of records or getting a “no records found” response for the agency. Always make sure you have the agency denying your request to cite the laws they are using to base their decision on. If all else fails then appeal the agency’s decisions.

Walker participated in an Institute program on strategies for obtaining public records during the pandemic. Watch here:

Keeping public records public: Strategies for getting access during the pandemic

Lead like Ted Lasso

Fictional coach Ted Lasso faces dramatic dilemmas; his methods for resolving them carry real lessons for managers. The U.S. expat in England has a lot to learn about ‘football’ (aka soccer), but there’s a lot he can teach about leadership. One of his first acts as coach was to hang a sign in the locker room that simply says: “Believe.” Great managers know that the most powerful sentence they can voice is: “I believe in you.”

Advice from Jill Geisler, Bill Plante Chair in Leadership & Media Integrity, Loyola University Chicago, Freedom Forum Fellow in Women’s Leadership

Click here to read Jill’s previous posts.

Resources

This newsletter is written & edited by the National Press Club Journalism Institute staff: Beth Francesco, Holly Butcher Grant and Julie Moos. Send us your questions and suggestions for topics to cover.

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