Community Events

By the time Election Day arrives, billions of dollars will have been spent - but where exactly is it coming from? Following the trail through PACs, super PACs, political parties and campaigns can feel like an impossible maze.

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In this session, OpenSecrets shows you how to crack the code. We’ll give you the practical skills needed to turn complex campaign finance data into the hard-hitting stories your audience demands. We’ll cover essential finance laws, FEC document navigation, and introduce brand-new OpenSecrets tools built to break down candidates and individual races. Don't just report on the election - uncover who is funding it.

Go beyond the basics with a dynamic introduction to DocumentCloud. This session explores powerful new features like autocomplete search and saved searches, helping you find what matters faster and stay organized. You’ll also learn how to embed documents, collaborate with colleagues, and streamline your workflow, so you can spend less time searching and more time reporting.

This session explores the intersection of FOIA and U.S. elections, focusing on where public records requests meet election administration, contested ballots, and allegations of voter fraud or interference. We’ll look at how reporters can use FOIA to understand electoral processes and uncover accountability angles when researching and reporting on politics.

We’ll also hear perspectives on handling sensitive records requests — what’s being sought, why it matters, and what it’s like responding in politically charged environments. The session will cover both candidate-facing records like calendars and emails, and election integrity-related materials tied to ballot disputes, certification and administration.

FOIAFriday is a community space for journalists, researchers, and transparency advocates to connect, share ideas, and dig into the practice of public records research and reporting.

With midterm elections approaching and primaries being held across the country, campaign finance data and candidate disclosures are more important, and more scattered, than ever. Information is spread across federal, state, and local databases, making it challenging to track the full picture.

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Join the investigative and research experts from MuckRock’s Sunlight Research Desk for a practical session on how to work with campaign finance and ethics data in your reporting. We’ll cover best practices for handling raw data, tips for navigating complex databases, and strategies for automating large-scale searches.

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Whether you’re covering an active race or building background on candidates and officeholders, this session will help you make better use of the data available. We’ll also walk through key resources and leave time for questions about access in specific states.

This session will focus on the state of environmental documents and data at the federal level. We'll cover changes in policies and practice under the current Trump Administration, so you know what to expect as a requester or user of these datasets. We'll also spend time stepping back to discuss what federal datasets are some of the most common and useful sources of information on the environment.

FOIAFriday is a community space for journalists, researchers, and transparency advocates to connect, share ideas, and dig into the practice of public records research and reporting.

This session focuses on environmental FOIA requests. We’ll explore how reporters and analysts track environmental impact through public records, and how those documents can help surface leads, timelines and key actors involved in response and oversight.

We’ll also center the human side of FOIA work, drawing on experiences from FOIA analysts at agencies where people urgently seek records after natural disasters that affect their homes and lives. The discussion will highlight how FOIA analysts and reporters can better support affected communities in finding and understanding records, and how environmental data and requests can move beyond statistics to reflect real-world impact.

FOIAFriday is a community space for journalists, researchers, and transparency advocates to connect, share ideas, and dig into the practice of public records research and reporting.

With a record-breaking $5.1 billion spent on federal lobbying in 2025, special-interest influence is at an all-time high. For reporters, finding the connection between a policy or legislative initiative and corporate dollars can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack.

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This hands-on OpenSecrets session is designed to give journalists the investigative tools to map lobbying influence. Learn how to track industry-wide spending trends, isolate specific corporate targets, and dissect the lobbying reports behind the legislation you cover every day. Don't just report on the bills - report on who paid to influence them.