Using FOI data to create killer pitches

How the Freedom of Information Act can boost your media pitch

There’s no rule which says only journalists can do investigations. Some of the best pitches I receive are from PRs and individuals who have started the process of digging out information themselves. Anyone can use investigative methods to dig deep into an issue - just like a journalist.

And when you’ve acted like a journalist to find story ideas, these pitches are likely to be well received - because these are exactly the kinds of ideas journalists would come up with, if only we had the time.

Whether you’re a PR professional or someone with a brand/campaign to promote, you can use investigative techniques to find stories in your field. One of the most accessible is using the Freedom of Information Act to get information from public bodies.

The Freedom of Information Act allows anyone to get data free of charge - I’ll explain more about how below. It’s a pretty easy way of getting great exclusive data but it seems to be rarely used in PR. It’s so rare in fact, that when this guy did it, he won an award.

Yet journalists like me use it all the time to generate stories - my latest was this Telegraph front-page story last month on the NHS paying to send patients abroad for treatment.

As I shared recently, in an increasingly-competitive media climate, numbers-based story pitches perform best when the data they are based on is robust. And an FOI request is a brilliant way of obtaining robust data, because it comes from public bodies so it is both official and independent. It’s also almost always unique, unpublished data - meaning you can offer a journalist a great exclusive.

This story about long emergency room waits for mental health patients, for example, was pitched to me by an organisation (the Royal College of Nursing), based on their own FOI request. I ended up writing the story for several national publications.

So how does the FOI Act work and how can you use it to generate story ideas for media pitches?

NB: If you’re reading this in the US, there is a FOIA law there too but it’s not something I’ve ever used - you may find this guide helpful for inspiration but this explanation of the logistics of using the law apply to the UK version only.

How the FOI Act works

In short, the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act is a method by which you can request unpublished data from public bodies, including education and healthcare institutions, Government departments, police services, councils and publicly-owned companies - basically any organisation on this list.

You can request any data the body might record - including email correspondence - and they are theoretically only meant to refuse this under certain circumstances, for example, if the data contains sensitive personal information.

There is lots of information out there about exactly how the Act works, the best ways to structure an FOI request and how to avoid refusals - you can even find email templates online.

So rather than delve into that now, here are the key things to bear in mind if you’re making an FOI request with the aim of generating news stories: