Journalists need to know, use, Freedom of Information laws and other investigative tools

This is the 4th in a series of articles by Knight Center students who attended the 2026 annual convention of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

By Victoria Witke

All journalists, regardless of the size or power of their outlet, should be building investigative techniques and culture into everything they produce. That’s an attainable goal and essential in improving news credibility and readership, Adam Rhodes said during the Society of Environmental Journalists’ 35th annual conference in Chicago.

Rhodes is an investigative journalist covering queer people in the legal system. Rhodes also doubles as the editor and training director at Investigative Reporters and Editors.

During the conference, Rhodes led a learning session titled “How to Be an Everyday Investigative Watchdog,” an hour-long crash course on incorporating investigative work into daily newsgathering to create beefier stories. The room was packed with dozens of attendees equipped with notebooks, recorders and pens.

“Our chief job as the press is to hold people accountable,” Rhodes said at the beginning of the session. “What else?”

“Uncover stories that matter to readers that aren’t just being a stenographer,” one audience member replied.

“Yes, absolutely,” Rhodes agreed. “Think of everything that we would not know about our nation, the government, the way that the world really works and moves without journalists asking extra questions.”

Rhodes said public records – things like databases, reports and documents – are rich in investigative story ideas and a matter of filing a Freedom of Information Act request. But, Rhodes said, the majority of investigative work is about a reporter’s mindset – not the easy-to-teach skills like filing a FOIA or finding a dataset on a government website.

“The most important thing is the desire, interest and commitment to do this work well,” Rhodes said.

Yet, there’s a lot of pressure, especially on small newsroom reporters, to turn out stories quickly. Journalists might have limited time to sift through troves of numbers or jargon-filled legal reports. Outlets may not subscribe to services like LexisNexis.

Rhodes – whose first reporting gig was at a legal news outlet where journalists had to turn four stories on complicated legal issues each day – gets it but now is quick at finding court records and hunting for other information fast.

“If you don’t have a lot of resources, you oftentimes don’t need extra resources. You already have the tools to get started,” Rhodes said, adding, “The key to get started is just to be curious.”

Rhodes’ suggestions: Ask the extra questions, follow up on breaking news stories, background every source and build good habits and routines.

“You get better at this the more you do it,” Rhodes encouraged.

When politicians make sweeping claims, ask them how they know. Six months after a breaking news event, follow up to see what’s happened since.

At least Google every interviewee for all stories – “You don’t want to run into situations where you interviewed a little lady and it turns out she’s a neo-Nazi,” Rhodes said.

As for building better routines, Rhodes said that takes time and practice.

Rhode’s own first FOIA request – like many people’s – was terrible. Locating legal documents took hours at first.

Rhodes suggested keeping an eye on the record retention schedules of agencies a reporter covers. These schedules include what records the agencies keep, what they are, why they use the record and what someone can expect to find in it – such as a database, how long the agency is legally required to keep it and then what happens after that timeframe.

“Review that schedule for inspiration for records you can request,” Rhodes said. “Sometimes I didn’t know that they even kept that. Look that up.”

If a story is going to need a FOIA request, do that first in the reporting process since agencies can take a long time to respond and provide that information. Plus, having documents can make interviews better, Rhodes said.

Assume requested documents are public and make a recalcitrant agency justify why it should be exempted, Rhodes said about responding to FOIA denials.

“So many journalists come to public records thinking you have to convince the agency about why you deserve these records,” Rhodes said. “It is the opposite. It is their job to tell us why we do not get things. The government works for us. So these are our records, and they have to tell us why we don’t get them.”

Stockpile data, too. Pull data from three-to-five-year time periods to figure out trends and outliers for stories.

All this information – FOIA request dates, data from documents, information from backgrounding sources – should be organized in a spreadsheet, calendar or whatever works for the individual reporter, Rhodes suggested.

Rhodes said good habits include being humble.

“The best journalists I know are the ones who have a lot of intellectual humility, who admit that they do not know everything, even about the stories that they’re writing,” Rhodes said. “I love to go into a story, obviously having an understanding of the topic, but really letting my sources educate me about something – especially if it is something about their lived experience that I have no experience with.”