The reporting question and the records request are not the same thing
Journalists begin with questions: Who knew? What changed? How much was spent? Why was the policy adopted? Government does not ordinarily have to create answers to those questions. It has emails, contracts, calendars, databases, audio, video, logs, reports, invoices, and memoranda. The craft lies in identifying which existing records can answer the reporting question without making the request needlessly broad.
FOIAWORKS provides a disciplined place to make that translation. A reporter can identify custodians, date ranges, search terms, attachments, native electronic formats, and related record systems before sending. That structure is especially useful when a story touches several public bodies or when the first production is expected to shape the second request.
One investigation can produce a dozen moving timelines
The administrative burden grows faster than the number of requests. Ten requests can mean ten response dates, several extensions, overlapping fee estimates, partial productions, follow-up questions, and links that expire on different days. Newsrooms often manage that work in spreadsheets and shared inboxes that were never designed to preserve a matter history.
FOIAWORKS connects each request to its own chronology and production while keeping the broader work organized. A reporter can see what is outstanding, what was promised, what arrived, and which denial or redaction may require closer review. Editors and collaborators do not have to ask one person to reconstruct the file from memory.
Today’s production is tomorrow’s source file
Public records often outlive the story that first prompted the request. A contract becomes relevant when performance fails. A police policy matters again after a later incident. A payroll export establishes a baseline for future comparison. If those materials remain attached to their source and request history, the newsroom builds institutional knowledge rather than a collection of unexplained downloads.
FOIAWORKS is intended to make records work cumulative. The value is not merely sending more requests. It is making each request more deliberate and preserving each production so that the next reporter, next investigation, or next public event begins with something better than an empty folder.
Where FOIAWORKS helps
A better structure for the work.
FOIAWORKS cannot shorten every government search. It can shorten the time a newsroom spends figuring out what it asked for, what remains unanswered, and where the records went after they arrived.
Sharper requests
Define custodians, dates, formats, and record categories before the reporting clock runs out.
Multi-agency visibility
Follow separate responses without losing the shape of the larger investigation.
Production continuity
Keep source documents connected to the request and correspondence that produced them.
A reusable archive
Preserve contracts, data, policies, video, and other records for later reporting.
Request it. Track it. Keep it.
Give public-records work a place of its own.
Your first request is free.