For the Record: Requesting data inventories
MuckRock’s #FOIAFriday webinar series continued last Friday with a step-by-step guide on how to request data inventories from federal and state agencies.
Release Notes: More information when scheduled Add-Ons stop working
DocumentCloud now allows Add-On developers to customize the emails sent when a scheduled run fails, making it easier to understand why something stopped working and potentially fix it. The Regex Extractor Add-On now enables tagging documents when a matching regular expression is found, opening up new ways to sort and filter large document collections with ease.
Behind the Badge: In New York City Homeless Shelters, the Same ‘Peace Officers’ Abuse Residents
Previously unreleased disciplinary files expose officers who beat, slap, and pepper spray the residents they’re supposed to protect. Most are back at work within a month.
‘Atomic Radius:’ The legacy of America’s nuclear weapons testing
Decades after the first-ever U.S. nuclear weapons test in July 1945, the extent of the fallout has only now been understood, thanks to new modeled data by researchers. States Newsroom and MuckRock explore the human fallout from America’s nuclear testing program, and how the consequences are still felt today.
Automate your beat: Unredact documents, monitor websites and much more with DocumentCloud
Ever had a spreadsheet-turned-PDF you’re stuck untangling? Wish story ideas came right to you? Over the past two years, MuckRock’s DocumentCloud tool has built several ways to automate common journalism and research tasks, taking once-cumbersome processes and breaking them down to just a few clicks.
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FOIA 101: Tips and Tricks to Make You a Transparency Master
★ FeaturedWhether it's your first request or your first request *today,* it never hurts to go over the basics. MuckRock's compiled a lot of FOIA advice over the years, and with this project, it's all in one place. -
Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret
★ Featured“Smoke, Screened” is an investigative series by The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian on the large environmental impact of a little-noticed deregulatory tool found in the Clean Air Act. The provision in the Clean Air Act has allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, enabling local regulators to claim the air was cleaner than it really was for more than 21 million Americans. The loophole allows regulators to forgive pollution, and avoid costly cleanup work, caused by “natural” or “uncontrollable” events, including wildfires. -
Dangers in Our Air: Mapping Chicago’s Air Pollution Hotspots
★ FeaturedChicago’s air quality is among the worst in the U.S., and the city has several local hotspots for particulate matter 2.5 — the tiny particles that come from diesel trucks and industry and enter people’s lungs and blood, causing significant health problems. Between April 2021 and March 2023, the tech company Microsoft installed and monitored 115 air quality sensors across Chicago. We worked with Chicago newsrooms, including the Cicero Independiente, WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times, to analyze this data for a series of stories on the city’s comparatively poor air quality. We then installed our own air quality sensors in Chicago neighborhoods that lacked coverage in the Microsoft network — and looked for trends and spikes in pollution. -
Uncounted: An investigation of U.S. death certificate errors and the undercount of COVID-19 deaths
★ FeaturedDeath certificates have long been prone to error. During the pandemic, they've gotten worse, resulting in thousands of uncounted COVID-19 deaths. "Uncounted" is a collaboration between MuckRock, the USA TODAY network and dozens of local newsrooms around the country. We found that short-staffed, undertrained and overworked coroners and medical examiners took families at their word when they called to report the death of a relative at home. Coroners and medical examiners didn’t review medical histories or order tests to look for COVID-19. The result is a skewed picture of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S.