Freedom of Information

So, today's lecture was based upon the freedom of information act and the way information can be given to you as a journalist, without generally breaking any laws.The 2000 act gives the public and journalists two key powers, the first one makes it mantatory on a public authority to disclose whether or not it has the information requested. Ultimately this can prevent certain organisations or public bodies lying. There are many people who are covered under this act and some of them are stated as followed;
- More than 1000 public bodies
- Central and local governments
- The health system
- Education
- Other public bodies throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Specifically speaking these cover the following types of people;
- GP's
- Hospitals
- Parish and Town councils
- Dentists
- Schools, Colleges and Universities
- Pharmacists
- Government departments

There are some exemptions to this which when thinking about it, are to be expected.
- Security and Intelligence services
- Special forces
- NCIS
All of the above have no duty to confirm or deny that any of the information people are enquiring exists.

This can be related to the public interest test which relates to the way that information must be released unless it is judged that the public interest in not disclosing it is greater than the public interest in releasing it.
F.O.I protocols are something which is extremely important when talking about the freedom of information act. It relates to the way there is no need to disclose why information is sought. The response back to those who write the F.O.I must be within 20 working days and also outline complaints procedure if necessary.

For those who are interested in requesting information using an F.O.I you must request it in writing, with enough information for authority to reply to. You can also specify how the information can be given back e.g. through email, writing etc.
On a final note, I will describe the main danger in doing this. This main danger is in asking for anything that might identify anyone in particular - because of secion 8 HRA and the data protection act, they can turn you down if the request will identify anyone, even if it is by accident. So, it can be stated that journalists who perform this type of investigative act retrieve information which is highly sought and can be seen as very intersting as it is not the norm.