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While WikiLeaks' Julian Assange is facing heavy criticism for his role in releasing 250,000 secret government documents, a Somerville-based startup is helping citizens acquire government documents the old-fashioned way: legally.
Frustrated by the inefficiency of the public document request process, journalist Michael Morisy and programmer Mitchell Kotler joined forces in 2010 to create MuckRock, which aims to use technology to automate the data request process. The name is a play on the word muckraker, a slang term for investigative journalists, and a reflection on the company’s mission for creating transparency.
“MuckRock is a way to bring verifiable, newsworthy material back into the public sphere, even as we’re seeing a lot less of it out there,” said Morisy.
Part of the hassle the company is trying to address is that a lot of government agencies don’t accept emailed requests under the Freedom of Information Act, and many time-crunched reporters are too overworked to keep track of which requests they’ve sent or received or if any are overdue. MuckRock is also working to make the process easy and user-friendly for the general public, many of whom may have never written a request before and don’t know what data they have the right to request.
The company, which is in private beta, has created a request creation wizard to guide users through the steps of writing the request and submitting it to the correct agency. Once the request has been submitted, MuckRock determines which agency it goes to and taps into its digital directory of agency contact info to fax, email or snail mail the inquiry. In many cases, the agency selection process is entirely automated while a few others require manual sorting.
Every request is posted on the site in its entirety along with the date posted and its status. So far, 197 requests have been filed with 23 requests successfully completed and six requests denied. Once a request is fulfilled, MuckRock posts the digitized documents on the site.
The company is completely bootstrapped aside from a grant from the Washington, D.C.-based Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit organization that also uses technology to promote government transparency. MuckRock has also used some small crowdfunding projects to cover its operating expenses and other basic costs. The service is currently free, but the company plans to charge a $20-30 monthly fee for filing and tracking requests with the option of paying more for premium features and private filing and tracking.
Morisy breaks the company’s market into two divisions: the professional, such as the journalists, lawyers and researchers, and the personal, such as community bloggers, curious citizens and people passionate about local policy. While the professional market is one Morisy sees big potential to capture through creating efficiency, the personal market is proving more challenging.
“The personal market I think is much more difficult to crack, since it’s in part replacing a shrinking local news industry with something very different than people are used to, but I think there’s a lot of potential there to help bring stories to light that people care about,” said Morisy.
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