RSSA little help from our friends
Feb 26
Uncategorized Ben Eisen, Intern, Scanning, Sunlight Foundation, Tools of the Trade No Comments
This post is a long overdue, but we have a few “Thank You”’s that need to be given.
First off, if you follow the blog you’ve noticed some heroic FOIA Friday recaps, covering all that is new and interesting in the world of Freedom of Information and open access. None other than the amazingly talented MuckRock intern Philip Halin has been putting these together, as well as some interesting FOI requests of his own. Halin is a senior at Newton North High School who is interested in theatre, history, philosophy, and political science. He has a passion for free information and a voracious appetite for news from local to global, and we’ve been incredibly grateful and excited to work with him.
Second, journalist Ben Eisen has generously been helping out, pitching in our latest news story on the 17 proposed Massachusetts charter schools. Ben graduated from Cornell University after having served as managing editor of the Cornell Daily Sun and currently lives in Washington, D.C.
We’ve also been able to make some very important process improvements, including faster and more consistent scanning turnaround time, thanks to a very generous grant from the Sunlight Foundation. We would not have been able to accomplish as nearly as much as we have (including some three-dozen MuckRock-driven news stories) without this great organization’s support, which has covered our hosting costs, paper costs, lots and lots (and lots!) of stamps, and the newest full-time member of our team, the Brother MFC-9840CDW:
He never takes holidays, coffee breaks, and only complains occasionally when the FTP server fills up.
We’ve also been generously supported in several Freedom of Information requests via Spot.us, a crowdfunding site that lets you donate to stories or Freedom of Information request you’re interested in, either by making a direct contribution or even by just taking a survey. I’ll write more about our partnership later, but we’ve been incredibly humbled by the results and pleased with how well it integrates with MuckRock, both technically and in the ethos of locally-driven, locally-supported journalism and transparency.
Finally, we’d like to thank the amazing community of members and visitors that makes MuckRock possible: Without the regular e-mail tips, contributions via Spot.us, and brilliant requests that come in all the time, the site would be nothing, and we really appreciate all the support. Thanks for making it happen!
