FOIA doesn’t have to be dry, particularly if you get creative with your requests and how you put the data to work. This week, some great examples of using government data from the New York Times and CityLab, plus a report on a questionable new way to skirt the law via the Tri-City Herald.

FOIA is most commonly considered a reporter’s and citizen’s tool for establishing hard facts: dates, dollar amounts, data, etc. But FOIA is also useful in the trickier area of narrative. This week, we take a look a some examples of how FOIA was used to challenge a prevailing narrative from press coverage of the administration or that the administration itself sought to advance.