The Local Area Planning Office in Derry is on Orchard Street, a few feet away from the city’s main bus station. I arrived in Derry via the 8.30am bus from Belfast, nearly 4 weeks after making an appointment. Normally, when you file a request under the Freedom of Information Act,
Many of you will know my good friend David Kirk (@dhkirk). Long story short, he’s a Belfast boy who made his millions in Silicon Valley. Now in his retirement, he sips cocktails by his pool in Palm Springs and runs a home for abandoned cats (he’s a big softie at heart). When he’s not chasing feral cats, he’s chasing Invest NI, filing FOI requests and writing the results up on his Tumblr. Read More
Civil servants in a local government department conspired to withdraw funding from a charity they had taken a dislike to, doctoring the conclusion of a report about the charity’s finances and operations.
That’s one of many stories Northern Irish media have refused to publish because they’re afraid of “rocking the boat” with local government.
“If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.”
This piece of wisdom has been handed down to reporters for decades. I don’t know who said it first but it’s true.
I often hear people complain about journalists “getting things wrong”. Read More
Update 22/06/12 00:37am: At 3.31pm Thursday, I received a reply to *some of* my questions from Invest NI’s press office. They still didn’t answer my question about how they knew about my FOI request. At 3.36pm, I called the HQ in Bedford Street and asked to be put through to whichever department handles FOI’s. I ended up speaking to a lovely young guy who works in a department called ‘Internal Operations’. He told me his job was to assign FOI requests to the relevant departments who held the information. He told me that, when he or another colleague forwards an FOI to the relevant department, they CC the press office on the email so they’re “aware of the queries that are coming in”. This seems plausible, although I suspect Invest’s press office was briefed specifically about my FOI because I’m a journalist and I’ve asked some “very embarrassing questions” (as one source pointed out). Read More
There are a number of people who aren’t very happy about the questions I’ve been asking Invest NI. Senior staff in INI have dispatched messages to me through third parties and Linkedin tells me my profile was being regularly viewed last week by staff in their Boston and San Francisco offices (well, I can’t blame them for looking out of curiosity). But, seriously, the last eight days have been very stressful. I’m looking forward to writing about it next month and telling you all exactly what happened. For now, I’ve got to keep quiet. Read More
After my research into the Sexual Assault Referral Centre, I decided to take a trip up to Antrim Area Hospital. I wanted to see if construction had begun or if the project had gone AWOL again. (The Department of Health and their compadres have a nasty habit of not letting the Public know when projects fall down rabbit holes). Read More
Several years ago, when Northern Ireland’s Department of Health stripped the Belfast Rape Crisis Centre of its funding, there were whispers of a “replacement”.
Back in 2008, I started following the paper trail around the Department’s decision to remove funding from the Centre. This led me to the “replacement”: the Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC). When the Dept was challenged about removing the Centre’s funding, they would talk about their plans to build the SARC. Read More
“The Mac has always been about being the best, not making the most.” Tim Cook, Apple CEO, All Things D Conference 2012.
Apple’s approach to making products could be an interesting approach for tech journalism.
In business, companies talk about “market share”. Every quarter, they rush to beat Wall Street estimates. It’s okay if they make crap products and piss customers off as long as they keep delivering the goods to shareholders. Customers and product quality are only acknowledged when they affect share price. Read More
Update 11/06/12 12:38pm: I received an email from Invest NI early this morning, acknowledging my FOI. That was quick.
Here is a copy of the FOI I’ve submitted to Invest NI. I’ve tweaked it slightly; I’m now requesting information on all Invest’s offices in North America, based on advice from a source. I’m hoping this doesn’t exceed the £450 cost limit but if it does, I’ll cut the amount of information I’m requesting down (perhaps to two offices) and send in separate FOI requests (as I said in my last post). I may request the same figures for every office and turn it into a searchable database at a HacksHackers event. Read More
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