Categories: OLD Media Moves

Bloomberg’s FOI requests fail to get documents

Nine of 15 cabinet offices have yet to release details of their out-of-town travel records six months after Bloomberg News filed requests for those documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

Jim Snyder and Danielle Ivory of Bloomberg News write, “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Kathleen Sebelius of the Department of Health and Human Services are among those who haven’t complied.

“The law requires agencies to respond to requests within 20 working days. Watchdogs say the delays show that the president hasn’t fulfilled his promise of greater transparency, and one group found that more than half of 99 federal offices ignored a directive to overhaul the way they respond to filings.

“‘I’m concerned about the overall transparency arc for Obama’s second term,’ said John Wonderlich, policy director at Washington-based open-government group the Sunlight Foundation. ‘Has he given up on that mantle of being the transparency reformer?’

“Bloomberg reporters in June filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act for records on taxpayer-supported travel in fiscal year 2011 for 57 Cabinet departments and major government agencies.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.