Muckrock News

Ringing in the new year with records requests

ICE detainees’ access to gender-affirming care, universities responding to proposed government compacts and more.

We’re requesting ICE documents on transgender detainees

Immigration and Customs Enforcement stopped reporting congressionally-mandated data on trans detainees and modified contracts to omit trans care requirements.

Why are Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Elon Musk’s "intimate and embarrassing” emails still secret?

Last month, the Office of the Texas Attorney General ordered Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's office to release nearly 1,400 pages to The Texas Newsroom. All but about 200 were completely redacted.

TJA and MuckRock's collaboration hit 300 records requests. Here's what we got back.

Pronouns and nicknames in FDA emails, Medicare coverage changes and more.

How are opioid settlement funds being spent in your state? You can use FOIA to find out

Over the last six months, MuckRock teamed up with a class of investigative journalism students at West Virginia University to request opioid settlement spending documents from all 55 counties in West Virginia.Through this work, we've learned how to manage all the requests, reach small towns and rural governments and make sense of the numbers — turning the documents into reporting that holds public officials to account.

It’s time to name and shame: Let us know 2025’s worst transparency offenders with a Foilies nomination!

Brought to you by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock, the Foilies “honor” the institutions and individuals most determined to keep the public in the dark.

Preserving Democracy: How CCIJ verified and permanently archived Nigerian election documents

Earlier this year, the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism undertook a massive audit of Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election, collecting and analyzing over 160,000 polling unit results.

Sunlight Research Center joins MuckRock to strengthen local journalism with investigative training and hands-on support programs

Journalists across the country can soon gain access to an enhanced suite of tools and services as MuckRock Foundation and Sunlight Research Center merge to expand local newsrooms’ capacity for high-impact journalism.

It’s Banned Books Week. Want to find out about censorship in your backyard? Join the FOIAs tour

Our good friends at 404 Media, the Trans Journalists Association and the Marshall Project have all been filing requests to find out what books are banned and where, so we decided it was time to hit the road and go on tour — a FOIAs tour.

Release Notes: Join your team faster and control your security more easily with MuckRock's updated Accounts page

This release continues improvements on our accounts platform with redesigned account pages that give you more control over your profile details and visibility into your connected accounts, the organizations that you are a part of, your security settings and more.

We want to know how local governments are using ChatGPT. Here’s how you can help.

Help us understand how governments use this latest technology.

Is your police department creating AI-generated reports?

MuckRock and EFF want to get a better idea of the usage of Draft One across the country, and now, we want to hear from you.

These agencies withheld police disciplinary files. Help us challenge that.

MuckRock readers have told us where to file requests for police disciplinary files and helped review the documents we got back. Now, we need your help fighting for requests that haven’t been fulfilled. In FOIA language, we need your help filing appeals.

Newsrooms of all sizes deserve better reporting tools and support. Through a new Knight Foundation grant, MuckRock is expanding our portfolio to make that a reality.

With a Knight Foundation grant, MuckRock is making it easier for newsrooms of all sizes to access the cutting-edge tools they need while helping innovators with promising new approaches reach a critical mass of early newsroom users.

We’ve obtained documents regarding anti-trans federal policies. Here’s what you need to know.

We’ve filed over 260 public records requests for the Trans Journalists Association and MuckRock’s partnership to document the impact of anti-trans federal activities.

How the Atlas of Surveillance built a platform to track law enforcement surveillance across the country

See how the Atlas of Surveillance uses MuckRock’s requests services and DocumentCloud to track law enforcement surveillance across the country.

How slot machines generates revenue for the Department of Defense

New records obtained by the Data Liberation Project show that military slot machine revenue is increasing.

The future of FOIA

Federal employees said they worry about the future of FOIA in the U.S., not only for their sake, but for requesters as well.

How are local governments spending opioid settlement money? We need your help to find out.

The Data Liberation Project is tracking money meant to repair the damage of the opioid overdose epidemic, and we need more volunteer investigators to join us.

The path to smarter tech for scrappy newsrooms

During INN Days, media organizations came together to talk about what practical issues are holding their newsrooms back—and what tools might actually help.

Monitoring projects with an impact on the environment

Disclose, a French investigative newsroom and NGO, wanted to spot major projects impacting the environment before they slipped past public awareness. Relevant documents were scattered across government websites, which were hard to find and even harder to monitor over time. Disclose used DocumentCloud and custom Add-Ons to build a system to collect, analyze and preserve these documents in one place, helping journalists and the public take action while it still matters.

MuckRock, NFOIC and other leading transparency groups receive $1.25M Press Forward grant to help local journalists obtain government records

Journalism relies on public records, but transparency laws are weakening nationwide, with longer response times, high fees and more frequent rejections. Agencies know that few newsrooms can research and push back on denials, and even fewer can litigate. This blocks both critical local accountability reporting and enterprise investigations, leaving the public in the dark.

‘In the sun’: St. Louis radioactive waste activists find hope in new federal law

The budget megabill passed in Congress last week included U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley’s language extending compensation for radiation-caused cancers to Missouri, New Mexico and six other states.

Text messages are public records. How do you request them?

Whether they appear in a yellow lined notebook or on white printer paper, government documents are government documents.

We’re requesting documents on the discontinuation of LGBTQ+ youth services

We've asked for documents and communications regarding the discontinuation of the 988 National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline's LGBTQ+ youth and young adult services.