I don't have any experience with federal FOIA. However, a state-level version, the Missouri Sunshine Law, has been instrumental in convincing the Dept of Natural Resources to do their job and regulate wastewater treatment. It's so easy to lie to uninformed citizens.
"Oh that facility hasn't had any excessive pollution levels."
"Yes they have: on this date, that date, and this other date."
"Well at any rate they were never referred to enforcement."
"Yes they were: the document is dated such-and-such and was signed by so-and-so." It's fun to catch liars lying!
Not as much fun to watch them continue to do so unimpeded. The number of "pants on fire" rulings by Politifact that keep making the rounds for years afterwards is pretty depressing.
That's because there's no penalty for lying, usually. Not that I think there should or shouldn't be - the minutiae is overwhelming - but in politics, when trying to get elected, or using your elected position to start wars... I'm sure there's something to be said there.
Not just journalists are hindered by this. We've made several FOIA requests as preparation for grant applications (mostly SBIR's). Generally we haven't gotten anything back and where we have it was 6-12 months late and not useful anymore.
The article's title breaks the HN guidelines (et tu, CJR?), so we changed it to a representative sentence from the article. Happy to change it again if anyone suggests better.
"Oh that facility hasn't had any excessive pollution levels."
"Yes they have: on this date, that date, and this other date."
"Well at any rate they were never referred to enforcement."
"Yes they were: the document is dated such-and-such and was signed by so-and-so." It's fun to catch liars lying!