Freedom of Information Act

Journalists thrive off of information, with the desire to gain access to sources that can provide us with new information; aiding our goal of sharing a new story to shine a light on an area that may not have been exposed in the media.

The Freedom of Information Act allows you to do exactly this, any individual not just journalists are entitled to request information from a public body, subject to certain exemptions. Whereas all the laws previously discussed regarding contempt of court, defamation and libel are the reverse of this. Instead of them allowing us to access and share all the information, it draws up limits on what is legally sound to publish.

The Government wants to be seen to be legitimate, promoting transparency and accountability, offering 'the people' the chance to further their understanding of public issues and bring to light information that may affect public health and public safety; both of which are of public interest.

There are over 100,000 requests made a year, costing around £34m, with only 12% of the requests coming from Journalists. Anyone can make a request, and it doesn't have to apply to just paper files, it can include information on video, tape or electronically too.

It's easy to make a request, either through the website 'WhatDoTheyKnow?' or simply by emailing the public authority. You can email about almost anything without having to provide them with a reason as to why you want to know - and its free. This accessibility is a privilege to journalists, who can plan in advance story ideas that will give them an exclusive inside scoop to stories relating to the news agenda.
By law the public body must reply to you within 20 working days, this is around four weeks. It is important particularly if you are working on a news story to plan ahead. It's worth thinking of upcoming occasions and public holidays to help time a story for example relating to 'valentines day'.
If the authority is debating whether or not your request is within the public interest they can take 40 days to consider it, so bare this in mind when planning ahead.

As mentioned earlier, you can ask almost anything you like, but there are two exemptions where you cannot obtain information.
Absolute - this is where information is absolutely exempt from being disclosed, for instance security services or court records, they have no duty to confirm to you any information that is withheld relating to the courts or the defence of the country.
Qualified - this is where it becomes partially exempt, for instance ministerial communication and commercial confidentiality, such as if it makes a qualified body look bad, but if the information is deemed to be within 'Public Interest' then it should be disclosed.

If information is covered by Qualified exemption you should still be given it if it is on the balance of the 'public interest' and passes the public interest test. 

Public interest is where something is in the interest of the public for instance health and safety not merely interesting to the public. For example:
How many NHS nurses have criminal convictions? - This is public interest
How many NHS nurses are divorced? - This is merely of interest

Qualified exemption outweighs the public interest in cases that jeopardise the national security, cause prejudice to defence, economic interest of UK and law enforcement, expose information intended for future publication or relate to communications with the royal family.

If a request is refused you can by law ask for an internal review, raise it with an information commissioner, information tribunal or if it goes further you can take them to the High Court.

There are also laws in place to protect our information, including:
The Data Protection Act works to protect information away from public domain with respect to personal data. All the information that is held about us is confidential* and stops others obtaining the information. The only people entitled to gain access to information about yourself, is you, especially if you feel they hold the wrong information.
The Official Secrets Act  protects sensitive material and documents held relating to the defence of this country, for example the Ministry of Defence.
*Confidentially - There is a current story relating to the NHS and patients regarding the set up a a new giant database to aid medical research and monitor performance. Due to the confidentiality of patient data, records are being anonymised, but patients feel this new data-sharing scheme should be delayed.

FOI was a new labour policy introduced by Tony Blair in 2005. At the time of the introduction Blair deemed it to be a great idea, considering that journalists could gain access to the Conservatives dodgy dealings during power. However, after a period of time passed with Labour in power, the roles soon reversed and he regretted introducing the act: "You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop." These were the words of Blair himself, after the realisation hit that it was rarely used by 'the people' instead it was used mainly by journalists trying to uncover new material. Additionally he felt it was dangerous, because the government needed to discuss issues "with a reasonable level of confidentiality".

In the future, under the coalition Government a review of the FOIA may be considered to essentially limit people from making too many requests where they become too 'burdensome', particularly Journalists. They could lower the limits on costs, leading to many more requests being refused, further to this, altering other factors such as time take to release information or not in to the cost calculations.
As you can imagine, press organisations and freedom of speech campaigners have been very critical of the plans.