ABSTRACT
Freedom of Information (FOI) laws represent one of the major policy innovations of the late twentieth century, having spread across the world since 1990s. FOI laws entrench a public right to request information within a set timeline, subject to a set of restrictions or exemptions, frequently with an independent appeal mechanism for complaints. For journalists in the UK FOI offers potential access to information held by central and local government as well as parliament, parish councils, hospitals, and so on. FOI now sits in both a changing transparency and media landscape. FOI is part of an ever-evolving 'ecology of transparency' composed of 'countervailing mechanisms of control' and a 'network of other structural checks'. In UK FOI now exists alongside a whole series of legislation, regulations and experiments. These include Environmental Information Regulations, Subject Access via Data Protection Act as well as a host of 'targeted' sector specific transparency instruments granting access to medical records all way to local government accounts.
