So, does the FOIA think we're as inept to handle the truth as Jack Nicholson thinks we are?

So I did something really cool today. Something decidedly less depressing than some of the other stuff I've been posting lately. I attended the Society of Professional Journalists Conference at Hofstra University today. I'm actually still here.

I'm in this musty old room right behind the library labeled "Group Study Room." Despite the name, it is inhabitant of any other soul but me. And no one in here is studying.

I am trying to just sit down and absorb all the information that I obtained today. The first session I attended was about FOIL. I've never heard anyone talk about the Freedom of Information Law as an acronym before today, but I definitely see the significance now and why journalists feel the need to mush it all into one syllable. Us writers. We all think we're so clever.

There were the least students in this particular session today and more professionals in it than any other session I was in. It was definitely the most specific one because it all came down to trying to get around someone telling you you can't have the information you have the right to have. I get it. It's not a law most students run into that often because they're students. We report mostly on the schools we're in.

But the professionals (mostly women today, I might add, which I did not expect) seemed to be having a very profound struggle with being told no, being told it was a matter of national security, or being told they couldn't have it because the matter was "under investigation."

The panel was very encouraging, and discussed the importance of persistence, courtesy, rudeness when it is necessary, and making sure everything you get is on the record all the time. The only journalist on the panel recommended that you shouldn't rely on that single FOI for you story. His answer to the question seemed obvious--source up, buck up, eyes and ears peeled for where else to go for information, and dig around with the officer you're requesting information from. Singular question with a singular answer I guess. Definitely not a singular or exclusive issue though, obviously.

It has piqued my curiosity, however. I'm going to file for one of these on Monday to see what the process is really like.