Journalism listers:
I got this e-mail from a colleague at the Daily News. Thought some of you
might find it useful.
linda crider


Among the tips I picked up at the Ohio State Bar Association's annual Media
and Law Conference:

Websites to bookmark that will help you create perfect Freedom Of
Information request letters.

1. For federal FOI requests, it's
http://www.rcfp.org/foi_lett.html

The Fully-Automated Fill-in-the-Blanks FOI Letter Generator

The form is designed to help you create a simple FOI letter. It asks you for
all pertinent information, guides you through the options available, and
even lists a number of federal agencies and their addresses.

All you have to do is fill in all the information and answer the questions
on the page. Once you are done, click on the button that says "Create
Letter." This will NOT send the letter to the agency for you; instead, it
sends back a letter as a World-Wide Web page that you can save as a document
for editing in your word processor, or send directly to your printer.

Once you receive the finished letter (which should be almost immediately
after clicking on the designated button), you can save it to a file on your
computer to use as a template.

2. For records requests in Ohio, the website is
http://splc.org/ltr_sample.html

You should use The Fully Automated, Fill-in-the-Blanks State Open Records
Law Request Letter Generator to request access to records held by a state or
local government agency or body (e.g., public school district, public
university campus police, state board of health, etc.).

The Generator is set up to create a letter for every state. If you click on
Ohio, it will automatically insert (1) the specific citation for Ohio's open
records law (Ohio Rev. Code Ann. sec. 149.43 to 149.44),and (2) how much
time the law allows for an agency to respond (ten [10] business days). The
letter will also note (3) penalties provided for by the law should
government officials fail to comply with your request (the award of court
costs and attorney fees).

In order to complete this form you must: (1) provide a reasonable
description of the public records you are seeking and (2) the name and
address of the government official who you believe is responsible for
keeping those records.

Very handy.

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