In late September, the Newport Beach Police Department in California released a podcast titled Countdown to Capture detailing the open case against Peter Chadwick. The podcast was written, recorded, and produced by NBPD spokeswoman Jennifer Manzella with help from her colleagues in the police department. Emails obtained by MuckRock showed the department’s months-long production process.

After an unflattering depiction in “The Vanished” podcast, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has adopted an ever-changing set of rules for accessing public records on missing persons.

Join Shawn, Nicole, and myself for the fourth installment of our ever-evolving FOIA-side chat series, where we talk about disappearing FBI files, the requester as archivist, and that time Johnny Cash burned down a national forest.

Join Shawn and Beryl for the third installment of our ever-evolving FOIA-side chat series, where they spend an Earth Day afternoon discussing Beryl’s work with gas leaks in Massachusetts, and what you can do to help.

Join Shawn and I for the second installment of our ever-evolving FOIA-side chat series, where we talk about missing memos, salacious PowerPoint slides, and when it becomes a reporter’s job to prevent information from being released.

On August 9, 1990, two U.S. Embassy employees trying to enjoy a beer at the Mezhdunarodnaya Hotel in Moscow were interrupted by a stranger. What wouldn’t come out until much later: This stranger was Edward Lee Howard, who slipped past federal agents to defect to the Soviet Union years before. This is the story of how.

What’s in a name? Potentially, quite a lot of trouble, particularly in the 1940s when the Red Scare was at its height. This is the story of two men, both named Irving Adler, which were investigated by the FBI, and how MuckRock accidentally got its hands on their files.

Feel like your public records request is taking forever? You’re not alone: MuckRock contributor Anais Vaillant crunches the numbers to look at just how much of a waiting game public records have become. Listen in to this week’s episode.

For the past few months, we’ve taken a small team at MuckRock aside to work on a special project unlike anything we’ve ever done. Today, I’m excited to share the results: The MuckRock podcast, season 1, episode 1.