DocumentCloud is both a repository of primary source documents and a tool for document-based investigative reporting, kind of a like an online card catalog for primary source documents. It is designed specifically for journalists. When you upload a document to DocumentCloud, you can annotate it, share it with colleagues in your newsroom or beyond your newsroom, view lists of people and places named in it, plot the dates it contains on a timeline and more.
Everything you upload to DocumentCloud stays private until you're ready to make it public, but once you decide to publish, your documents join thousands of other primary source documents in their public catalog. Use their document viewer to embed documents on your own website and introduce your audience to the larger paper trail behind your story.
DocumentCloud contains court filings, hearing transcripts, testimony, legislation, reports, memos, meeting minutes, and correspondence. It is free to join!
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) provides that any person has a right, enforceable in court, to obtain access to federal agency records, except to the extent that such records (or portions of them) are protected from public disclosure by one of nine exemptions or by one of three special law enforcement record exclusions. A FOIA request can be made for any agency record. Before sending a request to a federal agency, you should determine which agency is likely to have the records you are seeking. Each agency’s website will contain information about the type of records that agency maintains.
More information on where to make a FOIA request
A project to automate and streamline FOIA requests funded by a successful 2013 Kickstarter campaign and the Center for Investigative Reporting. This tool contains the contact information for FOIA-able federal, state, and city agencies, and will help you draft the letter, waive any related fees, and send your request. Create an account for free.
Sometimes the public records you need may have been successfully FOIA'd by another journalist. If they have, and that journalist has posted them in a FOIA repository, that can save you a lot of time! These repositories of successful FOIA'd documents are a great place to search before making your request.
A "records retention schedule" is the key to identifying FOIAable or FOILable documents within an agency. If you know the name of the record or document that you are looking for the chances of your FOIA request succeeding are far higher. To find a record retention schedule, run a Google search for the terms "records retention schedule" and the name of the organization:
"records retention schedule" "new york state department of corrections"
Below are some particularly useful records retention schedules for NYU Journalism students.
While FOIA covers access to federal government agency records, the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) guarantees access to state and local government records. All fifty states also have freedom of information laws that govern access to these documents, though the provisions of the state laws vary considerably.
In New York state, FOIL guarantees access to a whole host of government agencies. Below are quick links to some commonly requested New York agencies: