How Memory Hole scooped everyone
How did The Memory Hole's Russ Kick scoop mainstream media by getting photos of military coffins coming back from Iraq? "Any time I see in the news that the government is refusing to release something—usually it’s a report or something along those lines—I automatically file a FOIA request for it."
Good advice any reporter can -- and should -- follow.
Kick says he scooped everyone because the media is lazy:
"The media is so deadline driven. FOIA takes a long time -- it can easily takes months to get a response, sometimes years. It doesn't really fit in with the overall trying-to-get-a-new-scoop-every-day-24/7-news-cycle now. The media definitely does not use FOIA as much as it should. Right before all this happened I was reading a survey that had been done a couple years ago about who uses FOIA, who files the most requests. It's mostly lawyers in litigation and corporations who are checking up on their competition. Just [around] 10 percent of FOIA requests come from the media. It's a really great tool. It's obviously not perfect by any means. It should be used a lot more than it is."
Jun 02, 2004 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(0)
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