You may know him by his social handle, @FOIANate. FOIA — the Freedom of Information Act — is Nate Jones’ business.
Jones is the FOIA director at The Washington Post and ideally suited to the role. He’s a historian, journalist and lawyer — all disciplines that inform his work.
“I started as a historian, and I was writing about the history of a nuclear war scare in 1983 called Able Archer,” Jones recalled. “The documents were classified, and so the archivists — kind of meanly — said, ‘You could try FOIA, but that’ll never work.’ That was the first time I’d heard about FOIA.”
Enacted in 1967, the FOIA requires government agencies to disclose any information that is not protected in the interest of personal privacy, national security or law enforcement. In addition to accessing federal documents, each state has a version of the law on the books, which entitles the public, often through journalists’ inquiries, to request information about government programs, activities and research.
One of the first big FOIA projects he worked on at The Post was with Investigative Reporter Craig Whitlock. They’d sought records for more than 400 retired service members, including generals and admirals, who had applied to work for foreign countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
“It was completely legal, but it was completely secret,” he said. “Craig and I, through the use of FOIA, showed that public servants were retiring and getting paid a lot of money by countries with less than ideal human rights records.”
In his role, Jones works with journalists across the newsroom. He said one of the best parts of the job is the variety of stories his work touches. For example, when five zebras escaped a Maryland farm and began popping up in Washington, D.C., neighborhoods, Jones and the local team filed records requests with Prince Georges County, Maryland’s Department of Agriculture, the USDA and other agencies.
“It just shows how random and fun my work can be,” he said.
Some of the work isn’t quite as amusing. Jones said, “It's very pervasive” that agencies produce heavily redact documents, sometimes to a comedic degree.
“There’s a little dark humor among some journalists. When we get one [that’s mostly redacted], we say, ‘Oh, got a new one,’ and it gets put up on the wall as abstract art,” he said. “But the good news is, fortunately, there are ways to fight those redactions in two steps at The Post. One is an administrative appeal, and that’s basically writing a letter that says, ‘I think you over-redacted this and didn’t follow the law.’ … Step two, which is more resource intensive, is to sue in court. The Post is not afraid to use these resources to go to court and tell a judge that the agency is breaking the law.”
Jones leads quarterly FOIA training sessions for the newsroom, but he also wants to inform readers and the broader public about the FOIA process. He collaborated with Emily Joynton, a freelance illustrator, on a 10-panel illustration covering everything from records requests to filing a lawsuit to compel disclosure of documents agencies are reluctant to produce. It was published in March 2024.
Not all newsrooms have the resources The Washington Post has to mount a FOIA lawsuit, but Jones offered some encouragement: “Often, state laws — state public record laws — are quicker and more friendly than the federal FOIA. If you’re a local paper, take advantage of your state’s laws. Work with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a great ally and advocate that can help.”
Gretchen A. Peck is a contributing editor to Editor & Publisher. She's reported for E&P since 2010 and welcomes comments at gretchenapeck@gmail.com.
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