This post discussed journalists’ objections to a new FOIA policy, in terms of the objections’ relevance to an appeal pending in New Jersey, where the court will decide whether OPRA requests are confidential. The FOIA protocol is that when a federal agency grants a FOIA request from the media and other organizations, it will also post the documents online, so that the public can see what was produced.

This  recent Huffington Post article goes into more detail about journalists’ criticisms, which boil down to the concern that revealing what they requested will harm media investigations of government. Although the article quotes various open government activists who support the policy, it’s notable that reporters, including those at the New York Times and the Washington Post, want some degree of confidentiality applied to their records requests to protect their ability to conduct investigations into government activities without alerting other journalists.

This exact concern was cited by the Appellate Division, in the Gannett opinion, for why OPRA requests should be confidential. The court’s example was that if another news organization were conducting an investigation into an agency’s financial practices, it would not want Gannett to be able to have that agency disclose all records that had been provided to Gannett’s competitor.

As indicated in Gannett, as well as in many other New Jersey judicial opinions, under OPRA, access to government records sometimes must give way to third parties’ interests in privacy and competitive advantage. The journalists’ objections to the FOIA policy confirm that these exceptions may well apply to requests to see others’ OPRA requests.