Navigating FOIA: Challenges and Ironies

To mark his first hundred days in office, President Trump signed three executive orders related to immigration. On this week’s On the Media, the powerful database that can help I.C.E. track down and deport people. Plus, the dramatic fight for power over Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

[01:00] Host Brooke Gladstone talks with Jason Koebler, co-founder of 404 Media, about how a surveillance company is supplying ICE with a powerful database to identify and deport people with minor infractions or certain characteristics.

[20:57] Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Jason Leopold, a senior investigative reporter at Bloomberg and writer of the newsletter “FOIA Files,” about the Trump administration’s attacks on Freedom of Information Act offices at the CDC and FDA, and what they mean for the future of government transparency.

[31:50] Brooke talks with McKay Coppins, a staff writer at The Atlantic, about the remarkable, extensive interviews he conducted with members of the Murdoch family — particularly James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn. (Rupert and his eldest son, Lachlan, declined to participate.) Plus, how the HBO show “Succession” influenced the family’s fight over the future of their own media empire.

Further reading:

• Inside a Powerful Database ICE Uses to Identify and Deport People, by Jason Koebler
• Trump Filed a FOIA Request. We FOIAed His FOIA, by Jason Leopold
• Growing Up Murdoch: James Murdoch on mind games, sibling rivalry, and the war for the family media empire, by McKay Coppins

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