Council documents tell stories, not just Freedom of Information requests
Posted: July 11th, 2010 | Author: Ed Walker | Filed under: Journalism | Tags: council documents, council meetings, council reporting, councillors questions, foi, foi friday, freedom of information, reporting, reporting tips, scrutiny committees | 5 Comments »
The Freedom of Information Act was great for journalism, opening up a world of information on public authorities and definitely very useful when it comes to squirreling away stories (getting stories ready ahead of a holiday period such as Christmas).
While I don’t dispute the great stories that come from FOI requests, just see David Higgerson’s weekly round-up ‘FOI Friday’ for some superb stories across the UK media, it’s worth remembering what can come from sifting through council documents that often contain data as controversial as that in FOI requests – it’s just not as straight forward to find.
There’s a few ways you can find stories from council documents:
- Scrutiny committee papers
- Executive business meetings
- Councillor’s questions Read the rest of this entry »
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