I've spent the last two years working on and off on a new 9-part true-crime podcast, Ransom, which just launched today. You can listen to episode 1 above.

I'm really proud of the work I've done on it, and it's definitely the podcast I've sunk the most time into of any I've worked on. It was a blessing to get editorial support and to have the luxury of time to go through multiple rounds of revisions (some past projects of mine could've really used one more draft). In fact, Ransom, the only serialized true crime show I've worked on that was basically all in the can at the time of launch. 

That being said, the slower process has also taught me a couple lessons that I hope to take to the next project I work on.

1. When you have time then the struggle becomes motivation and consistency
   If you're under a tight deadline, there are things you wish you could change but don't have time to. This project I had the opposite problem — because of issues on the business side (we'd sold the podcast to Kast Media, shortly before it went down in flames) that meant I had extra time to refine the show, but I had to worker harder to remember what had drawn me to the story in the first place and to maintain the "tone" consistently throughout the show -- not to mention the new nightmare of matching VO tracks from different sessions conducted over months.
   
   
2. Collect pictures and links that you'll want to use in write-ups and marketing along the way.
   In general with this sort of thing I trust my memory -- if a quote's good and important, it'll be "sticky," I'll remember and be able to search back for it later. That's generally pretty easy to do with audio, because I'll remember the quote well enough to find it in the transcript. But pictures are much harder to search for - where did I see that again? I swear a stumbled upon the flicker of a photographer at the trial at some point, but now can't find it anywhere.
   
   
3. Similarly, learn how to do OCR (Optical Character recognition) on big .pdfs
   This is something I didn't do for this project but want to make sure I do on future projects. I spent way too much time, fact-checking and looking for a little snippet of something I remembered from disorganized hundreds of page pdfs from the FBI and Sheriff's department. In the future I need to digitize them with OCR so I can search, re-organize them with a table of contents the first time around. It'll be a pain but ultimately pay off.
   
   On the flip side, I did have the experience of leafing back through pages towards the end of the project, and stumbling upon something significant that I didn't understand the first time around. So flipping back through everything towards the end of the project is also important.
   
   
4. Be super explicit with your FOIA and on your hunt for archival.
   Ask multiple times to make sure you got everything. We nearly missed photographs from the sheriff department because we didn't explicitly ask for photos. Similarly, we almost missed some crucial archival footage by talking to the wrong person at a TV station. People at the station might not even know if or where their archives are kept somewhere.
   
   Explain how valuable any media like photos, home video or voicemail are to sources, and offer to do all the work of digitizing them.
   
   
5. Record everyone's contact info when you first connect with them (don't rely on phone and email for those records)
   When I switched from employee to contractor I lost access to my email, and forgot to back up messages I'd made with sources (and to add their contact info into my master spreadsheet). Similarly, my phone glitched, and because my iCloud was full, I lost a lot of contacts I'd made. Luckily I had done a decent job of keeping the master spreadsheet up to date, but I need to really make that a solid habit. So, future me: Once you make contact with anyone, update the spreadsheet that same day!
   ​​

There will probably be more thoughts to come, but these are the ones that jumped into mind on launch day!

​Recently, KSL paid for me to attend the 2022 Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Denver.

IRE has a lot of workshops on data journalism, beat-specific seminars, and career advice, but I chose mainly to primarily attend lectures on finding government records through FOIA and its state law equivalents.
Working in true crime podcasts, public police records and court documents are crucial to researching a story, and archival audio can really bring a story to life, but I really think these tips and tricks are useful to anyone doing investigative journalism.
Does it exist in open records?
Some states or agencies, automatically collect certain records and publish them online. For example, here are the open records from Utah's department of public safety.

Do you know what you're looking for and who has it?

If so, make a public records request. It can be helpful to look up the particular public records act for the place you’re requesting from and try to find a template specific to their statutes:

• Including the legal deadline they must respond to the request.
• Ask them to provide you with information about how to appeal if they deny it
• Give any information you think will be helpful to them in finding it (dates to search)
• Identify yourself as member of the news media. Then they can only charge you “duplication fees”
• Ask them to contact you before charging you to process anything.
  
  

I'll generally call an agency before submitting my formal request and ask them what's the most convenient way for me to submit it to them.

• This reminds them you're a real person and makes them more likely to take your request seriously.
• Write down who you talked to, and set calendar reminders to follow up.
• Bug them, nicely. “Hey, just calling to check…” “My boss is asking me when we’ll get this information.”
  • One speaker suggested the tone you want to take is persistent and slightly annoying soccer mom, or nice polite person with amnesia who keeps asking for updates.
  • If you're working on a team consider playing good cop / bad cop with another team member. Or if things are really dragging, consider turning bad cop yourself.
    
    

Okay, but what if you don't know who has the record or if it even exists?

Think like a document: what might a record look like, and what agencies might also be interested in this information.

Contact all agencies you think might have the info: You never know which agency might have the info and which one might be more responsive to public record requests. For example, with records from a criminal case that went to trial the DA's office, the county clerk, or the police agencies may all have somewhat overlapping sets of documentation.

When in doubt make public records requests from all agencies. But also try to cultivate sources. Talk to PIOs or insiders at those agencies, and see if they have more info about what documents are out there. And what specifically to request.
There are records of what the government keeps / releases to journalists:

• Look at record retention logs to look at what sort of records the government is required to keep.
• FOIA the FOIA logs – Request a list of what documents other people have requested and what requests have been granted. Citing past granted requests can be great to include in your request letter or when talking to a FOIA article.
  • Muckrock.com - is a crowdsourced version of the same information. People submit their requests and the responses they got back from different agencies. This is a great place for finding request templates for the specific state or agency where you're making your request.
• If you're looking for information stored in a table, spreadsheet, or large centralized digital repository, ask for the “data dictionary,” “file index,” “database dictionary."
  • This should give you valuable information about what information is kept, and what precisely to ask for when trying to access that data.
    
    

What do you do if your public records request is rejected?

• Look at other agencies that may have the same/similar data,
  but don't give up on your first request just because it's rejected, or if they give you an unsatisfactory release and you know they have more information.
• Immediately contact them again, "Hey, did you make a mistake?" "I insist that you follow the law and release this information."
• File an appeal. (There may be a time window for filing the appeal. If it lapses, you'll have to file the request again.)
• Request the “downstream records” that resulted from the records request.
  • i. e. Request the emails that resulted from your records request. This may give you insight into why your request was rejected, or show that it was rejected improperly.
• Name and shame. Publish a story about how the agency denied your request and why the public is entitled to these records.
• Sue or at least threatening to sue. "You're wrong to deny this request and will lose when we take you to court."
  • If you're a freelancer or at a small institution contact the Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press, or The Cornell Law Schooll First Amendment Clinic. (Your local university may also have a similar first amendment clinic, where professors and law students take on reporters cases pro bono.)
• Ask the IRE listserve for advice
• Look at public records lawsuits against the same institution you're trying to get records from. Point out to them if they've lost a case over a similar denial in the past.
• Ask a lawmaker for the same info or ask them to request the same information. Sometimes they have the inside track to government records.
• Get a leak. Talk to your sources from within the agency about how important it is for the public to have this information. Setting up a confidential line of communication like signal or protonmail can help with getting leaks.

Federal Courts
Information from federal courts is sort-of stored online, through the outdated and overly expensive PACER system. PACER stands for the Public Access to Court Electronic Records. You need to make a login and hook up a credit card, and although you get a certain amount of free requests per month, after that point you get charged 10 cents/page. And you get charged before you even get to see the records.

• Unless you're a lawyer, it can be difficult to know what documents are important. But if it's a case that's received media attention pay particular notice to records that people have "requested to be unsealed." Those records may be of interest to you as well
• Court Listener Similarly, some documents on PACER have been made free through a crowdsourced effort. https://courtlistener.com/recap. By installing the Court Listener plugin, any document you request from PACER will automatically be uploaded to the Court Listener database, so others can see it for free. And you can browse through the documents that other users have uploaded.
  • It has search functions, that let you search through case dockets and the full text of documents.
  • You can set up alerts, to be notified when there are updates to an ongoing trial.

​​For additional info, at the conference, experts recommended David Cuillier and Charles Davis's The Art of Access, Strategies for Acquiring Public Records. I'm currently reading the book myself!