Community Events

Find yourself taking the same actions on documents over-and-over, that you wish you could automate? This session builds on the foundations of MuckRock's Add-Ons ecosystem — covering what Add-Ons are, why they're powerful, and how to start writing your own. We'll walk through the advantages of building with Add-Ons and guide you through creating your first one, so you leave with the skills to automate and supercharge your workflow.

Before joining, we recommend watching this introduction to MuckRock's APIs and Add-Ons to get the most out of the session.

This session focuses on the intersection of FOIA and police misconduct records... what's available, what isn't, and how to navigate the legal and practical landscape that shapes access. We'll look at how reporters and researchers use public records to build accountability around law enforcement, from internal affairs investigations to broader data projects tracking officer conduct over time.

We'll hear from Sam Stecklow, an investigative journalist with years of experience FOIAing police records at the local, state, and national level — covering what it takes to obtain these records, how to push back when agencies deny or delay, and how to turn documents into durable, data-driven journalism.

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.

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.

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.

Dark money and super PACs are playing a major role in the 2026 midterm elections. This hands-on session led by veteran political money sleuth Michael Beckel — whose career has spanned OpenSecrets.org, the Center for Public Integrity, and Issue One — is designed to give journalists the investigative tools they need to follow big money in politics and uncover the special interests bankrolling political ads, like the crypto and AI industries. Learn how to track secretive groups, piece together opaque spending networks, and uncover donors who prefer to evade the limelight using corporate records, IRS filings, Department of Labor documents, FEC data, and more.

Money moves through campaigns, PACs, and committees in ways that are hard to track by hand. DataTalk makes that data searchable in plain English and returns transparent, reproducible answers so reporters can move from raw filings to publishable local stories faster. Learn more about DataTalk and how to use it for your storytelling this election season.

This session focuses on public records and ICE — what requesters have learned, what continues to evolve, and how reporters and advocates are using FOIA to illuminate the agency's operations and footprint. We'll dig into the lessons learned from filing public records requests with ICE, hear from those with firsthand experience, and pass the mic to community members who have been doing this work on the ground. The discussion will cover practical approaches, from local requests to larger datasets, and how those materials can support accountability reporting at the community level.

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.

Journalists conducting sensitive investigations can face a range of digital threats, including hacking, surveillance, and lawfare. Regardless of skill or experience level with digital safety, maintaining a strong foundation for digital safety and data management is a key part of keeping journalists and their sources safe.

This online safety workshop, run by Christopher Jones at the Committee to Protect Journalists, will provide investigative journalists with techniques and tools that can help keep their data, identity, and reporting safe and effective. Attendees will learn about how to assess their digital threat landscape, understand their digital toolbox options, protect sensitive data, and securely communicate with sources.

Who: Taylor Barnes is a field reporter for the award-winning outlet Inkstick Media, an independent, nonprofit newsroom covering war, power, and peace. Her reporting has brought her to key sites across the map of military-industrial America, from Huntsville, Ala., to Madison Township, Ohio and Promontory, Utah. You can sign up for her newsletter, Military-Industrial America, here. Her reporting has exposed arms industry lobbyists targeting local voters in Ohio, how Utah government officials let a major defense contractor off the hook for worker deaths at a missile plant, the Mormon church investments of tithe payer funds in ballistic missiles despite historic opposition to nuclear weapons weapons, loopholes written in North Carolina state legislation to benefit a key defense contractor, and more.

What: In this meet-and-greet training, field reporter Taylor Barnes will walk through the sources, methods, and tools she uses to carry out the enterprise and investigative reporting she has done on the people and places tied up in the trillion-dollar Pentagon budget. She will give a “how I did this” training on investigative pieces that have exposed worker deaths in the missile industry, uncovered arms industry lobbyist influence at statehouses, and scrutinized state contracts for tax breaks and subsidies to the industry.