Recently, we received our 1500th submission to the Great Hoover Hunt project, which aims to catalog all of the handwritten notes from longtime Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover in the Bureau’s files. To commemorate the occasion, we put together a collection of some of Hoover’s choicest bureaucratic broadsides, ready to be copy-pasted into your office’s Slack debate over who forgot to pick up more toner.

In June, we put out a general call to news nerds everywhere asking for great ideas to make our Slackbot for news (we call it Quackbot) amazing. Today, we are thrilled to announce we have had not one but two journalists take up the challenge.

Last week, Kel McClanahan, the executive director of National Security Counselors, a public interest law firm who often represents intelligence employees, whistle-blowers, and reporters (including MuckRock), joined us on our Slack chat. What followed may not be legal advice, but it sure was interesting.

Last Friday, MuckRock’s Sam Whitmore Media Survey Fellow Jessie Gomez joined us for our weekly Friday FOIA Chat on MuckRock’s Slack Channel. Gomez is currently working on building FOIA resources for researchers and journalists, and one of the problems she is looking to tackle is the complicated, varying, and often baseless FOIA fees. Here’s some strategies that came out of the conversation.

Investigative data reporter for Buzzfeed Kendall Taggart joined us for MuckRock’s Friday FOIA Chat last Friday on Slack to talk about where to find data - and more importantly, what to do with it.

Last week there were a number of bug fixes pushed out, including fixing one bug report that netted the reporter three requests as our thanks. See below for all the updates and how to help make MuckRock even better.

Public records helped tell some important stories this week, ranging from the hidden dangers of the food we eat to the data that increasingly shapes our lives. Here’s some inspiration for your own transparency fight.

Emmy-award winning journalist Lynn Walsh joined us on MuckRock’s Slack channel last Friday, where she shared her advice on using FOIAs in an investigative piece.

This coming Sunday, MuckRock will have two hours of planned downtime starting at 2pm Eastern as we roll out some major site upgrades. When we come back, you’ll have access to a revamped requesting tool and a host of powerful new features.

Troy Thibodeaux, the Associated Press’ data desk editor, joined us on MuckRock’s Slack channel to talk about how to get and use data.