Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and provides a behind-the-scenes look at how our journalism comes together.
In the first few months of the pandemic, blocks of data in some U.S. communities suggested that the coronavirus infected and killed blacks and Latinos at much higher rates than whites. A team of New York Times reporters who followed outbreaks across the country believed that the collection of detailed national data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could confirm this trend. There was only one problem: the federal government failed to honor reporters’ email request for the data.
To overcome this hurdle, the Times journalists relied on a decade-old law known as the Freedom of Information Act, which gives the public access to records from almost every federal agency, as well as state open record laws. After reporters received the data, their July article provided a detailed picture of 640,000 infections discovered in nearly 1,000 US states. This was the most comprehensive look at coronavirus cases across the country to date. The report also confirmed that blacks and Latinos actually had the worst pandemic.
Over the past year, dozens of Times journalists denied case-related data have filed more than 400 FOIA or other open records requests with government agencies. Many of these inquiries have enabled reporters to track cases, deaths and uncover locations of Covid-19 outbreaks.
“Having good information, solid data, and a respectful view of the agencies to make sure they are transparent leads to better accountability and, hopefully, better policies,” said Mitch Smith, a correspondent for the National Desk covering the Midwest and one of them was the journalists covering the history of racial inequality.
For the most part, submitting a FOIA request is as easy as writing an email. A reporter can submit a form on the federal or equivalent state FOIA website listing the information they are looking for. FOIA officials will then approve or deny the application despite sometimes not making a decision for an extended period of time – weeks, months, sometimes years.
Updated
April 14, 2021, 5:50 a.m. ET
Journalists can appeal after a rejection or after a deadline for deciding or responding to a request. However, if the appeal fails or an agency fails to respond, journalists can get the information, as the Times did to get the CDC data on which its report on racial inequality is based. Sometimes governments try to put up roadblocks in the form of exorbitant fees for conducting a file search, or requiring a reporter to be in the state where the application is being made, or simply requiring a form to be hand-made is delivered to a post office. Again, in some of these cases, the courts may have recourse.
Danielle Ivory, an investigative reporter for The Times, started filing FOIA and Open Records inquiries shortly after joining the Covid tracking team a year ago. Early on, she and her colleagues filed in almost every state for lists of nursing homes with coronavirus cases and deaths. Ms. Ivory estimated that later, when they reported on coronavirus clusters in universities, they sent over 200 requests to at least 150 colleges for case data alone, which helped them track more than 400,000 Covid cases back to universities by 2020.
“A lot of these places didn’t want to divulge the information,” Ms. Ivory said. “Some places told us they thought it was private. We asked for aggregated information so we disagreed with that assessment and in many cases we were right because some of them ultimately gave it to us. “
When prisons and jails started reporting spikes in coronavirus outbreaks last year, open file requests proved helpful in tracking the spread of cases. Danya Issawi, a member of the team that worked on this project, said filing FOIAs in the sheriff’s offices and local health departments has become almost a daily routine, not just about the number of infections and deaths in these Establish facilities, but also for the population of prisons and information for testing.
“All of this data represents real human life and real human consequences in places where numbers are not easily shared,” said Ms. Issawi. “Every time we file a FOIA and get information back, it seems like you’re filling a small gap with someone who might have a loved one or friend.”
As vaccination efforts continue, FOIA inquiries and other open records requests can continue to play an important role in ensuring that governments are transparent. This year alone, journalists have submitted dozens of FOIA inquiries to The Times looking for distribution patterns or problem areas.
However, Ms. Ivory is always optimistic that it will become easier and easier to discover the value of this data as more and more people realize the value of this data. “To be honest, I’m really hopeful,” she said.
