MuckRock users help release over two million pages of government records

MuckRock users help release over two million pages of government records

Thank you to the thousands of requesters who’ve fought for transparency around America

Written by
Edited by JPat Brown

Last night, MuckRock hit a major milestone: Two million pages of government records released, many of them for the first time, through the platform. Thank you to the thousands of requesters who have made this repository possible.

When we originally started MuckRock in 2010, our hope was that we could create a shared repository that all requesters could learn from, whether by seeing the language used in successful requests, getting new ideas for documents to requests, or by seeing the primary materials behind the stories they were reading, and learning more about the processes that help open up our government.

That first year, MuckRock users helped published 4,729 pages. That felt like a lot then, but just yesterday MuckRock requesters obtained another 12,481 pages of documents, so everything is relative.

That growth has only continued to pick up - we celebrated our first million pages just two years ago - and we’re excited to continue helping journalists, researchers, and the general public better understand government in the years to come.

Graph of pages released through MuckRock since 2010

We could not have done this alone.

Thank you to all the MuckRock staff, past and current, who have worked tirelessly to assist in everything from request strategy to scanning in documents; to the donors large and small who have funded this mission; to the dedicated Freedom of Information Act staffers and Public Information Officers who work tirelessly and often thanklessly to help inform the public; and to the thousands of requesters who have contributed to building this incredible resource.

If you’d like to explore those documents yourself, check out some of the tens of thousands of public requests filed through our platform here, and consider supporting our work directly or filing a request of your own to help hit that next million pages of government transparency.


Image via Paramount Pictures