Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) went into effect on October 1, 1975. In the intervening 50 years, enforcement of the law has evolved significantly, helping to refine and codify the public’s right of access not only to public records, but to public meetings.

At the forefront of some of the most consequential decisions for the public’s right to know: journalists who challenged abuses of the law at the Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) and sometimes in court. In FOIA’s early days, media—and particularly local newspapers—were among the first to bring claims that public agency officials were violating the law’s requirements to allow public access to records and meetings.

As the years progressed, members of the media used the law’s appeals process with increasing frequency, bringing challenges that have had a high rate of identifying violations. The FOIC found some form of violation of FOIA in nearly 70 percent of complaints Inside Investigator identified that were brought by journalists or media organizations.

But that has changed in recent years. As local daily newspapers and other media outlets have either shut their doors or been consolidated with larger media conglomerates, the number of challenges to FOIA abuses brought by media has declined, shifting the burden of safeguarding transparency to the public.

Legislative proposals seeking to limit FOIA and exempt more categories of records from compulsory disclosure under the law have also increased in recent years—creating a trend where a major tool for public transparency is under threat, at the same time one of the groups that has used and advocated for it most frequently is shrinking.

Though to date many of those legislative proposals have been stymied, the future of FOIA seemingly hangs in the balance. Though the law is a tool for the benefit of the whole public, it is often members of the media who pay the closest attention to threats to the law, have the greatest knowledge of how to use it effectively, and know when it is being abused.

As the shuttering of local newspapers or consolidation with larger media conglomerates continues to impact local journalism, and perhaps permanently change it, the use and utility of FOIA may change too.

Appeals: The FOIC’s Own Public Record

Almost as soon as FOIA became law, journalists began not only using it but lodging complaints with the FOIC. In 1975, various local media brought four challenges to FOIA abuses—all of which resulted in a finding that the law had been violated. The next year, media brought over 20 complaints to the FOIC.

The FOIC is something of a unique entity, both in New England and around the country. While just under half of states have some sort of ombudsman or appeals process that requesters can utilize for help with FOIA requests, the majority of those entities do not issue opinions on whether the law has been broken, or that shape enforcement of the law.

In many states, FOIA abuses require going through the court system—a timely and costly endeavor that can have a chilling effect on those abuses being challenged.

In addition to creating a more accessible option to challenging FOIA abuses, the Connecticut FOIC’s 50-year history of adjudicating the law also creates an accessible public record that helps shed light on how the law has changed over time.

Inside Investigator reviewed decisions published by the FOIC across its history, paying attention to complaints lodged by media, including the type of FOIA violation a complaint was alleging and the outcome to get a sense of how media’s attention to the state’s public records statute has changed over time.

The data shows not only a rise in the number of complaints filed by media organizations within the first few years of FOIA going into effect, but also that the majority of those complaints were well-founded and resulted in the FOIC finding a violation of the law in at least one of the claims made.

On average, by decade, the number of complaints filed by media organizations rose between 1975 and 2000. Between 1975 and 1980, media filed an average of 13 complaints per year. That rose to an average of 24 complaints per year between 1981 and 1990 and 26 complaints per year between 1991 and 2000.

But at the turn of the millennium, media complaints began to decline. And that decline has accelerated in the last few years.

But it’s not only the number of complaints filed by media that has declined, it’s the number of different journalists and media organizations filing them. There’s greater variability in the number of complaints filed by different media from year to year, but there is a noticeable decline over the last 15 years.

Since 2020, an average of 4.6 different media organizations have filed FOIC complaints per year.

But the total number of complaints the FOIC has issued annually hasn’t declined. In fact, it’s grown, along with the overall number of FOIA requests being filed across the state and the nation.

Successfully Challenging Abuses

So, what explains the decline in complaints filed by media, and why does it matter?

For a start, media complaints filed over the past 50 years have a much higher rate of identifying abuses of the law than complaints brought by the broader public. 

Between 1975 and 2024, just over 68 percent of complaints filed by media have resulted in the FOIC finding a public agency violated the law on at least one of the claims brought forward.

Of the roughly 900 complaints brought by media since FOIA first became law, nearly 22% resulted in a straight order for the disclosure of all outstanding records sought.

Many other decisions call for disclosure or some records sought, or order disclosure while allowing for redactions in particular circumstances. Others were withdrawn because the public agency cooperated with the request once the FOIC became involved and before a final decision was made.

Complaints brought by media have also tended to be more focused on issues of noncompliance than those brought by the public, highlighting areas of the law that agencies have most struggled with or most used to try to skirt disclosure requirements.

Among the exemptions public agencies have most frequently cited in complaints brought by media are an exemption for the disclosure of personnel records if they are found to be an invasion of privacy, an exemption for various types of law enforcement records, the preliminary drafts exemption, and collective bargaining rights.

In addition, many complaints, particularly in the early days of FOIA enforcement, have to do with violations of the law’s open meeting requirements.

In 1976, 40 percent of the 22 media complaints on which the FOIC issued decisions involved allegations of illegal meetings in some form.

While FOIA’s public records requirements frequently get more public attention, the law’s open meeting requirements are just as important. They ensure that the public is witness to the workings of government as they happen. They ensure that much of the public business occurs in front of the people affected by decisions being made and, in so doing, help provide a check on those actions.

For journalists, FOIA’s open meeting requirements could arguably be considered even more important than the law’s requirements for accessing records. Much of beat journalism—which focuses on a particular issue or institution—involves attending public meetings. FOIA helps ensure that’s possible.

FOIA’s open meeting requirements limit public agencies in a number of ways: they require notice of meetings be posted with enough access to make them access to the public; they require meeting minutes and agendas be posted and contain a certain amount of detail so the public can understand what will be discussed; and they limit what public agencies can discuss in executive session and who can be present.

When someone brings a complaint about a violation of open meeting requirements before the FOIC, there are a couple of actions the agency can take. 

In addition to ordering a public agency to publish meeting minutes or an agenda that better reflects public business, the FOIC can order members of an agency found to have violated the law’s open meeting requirements to attend training. It can also void the actions taken at a meeting if they are found to be violating FOIA’s requirements.

In many of the law’s earliest years, journalists were seemingly paying more attention to public affairs at meetings than to compliance with records disclosure.

Between 1975 and 1996, at least a quarter of complaints filed by media were over meetings that violated some part of the law. 

In only a handful of those cases did the FOIC find that there wasn’t some sort of FOIA violation. In several cases, their decisions went beyond directing the board or public body at issue to comply with open meeting requirements in the future. In one case in 1976 brought by the company that formerly owned WFSB, the Joint Committee on Legislative Management was not only found to have violated FOIA’s open meeting requirements, but the votes it took at a meeting were voided. 

In another case from the same year brought by the Journal Inquirer, the South Windsor Board of Education was ordered to amend minutes from a meeting and make available what had gone on during an executive session involving a teacher whose contract wasn’t being renewed.

These cases are significant not only because they bring to light violations of the law, but because they’ve helped shape the broader culture of openness in government that FOIA exists to promote.

In a number of early cases involving violations of FOIA’s open meeting requirements, while the FOIC found the public bodies at issue had violated the law, they found no intention of wrongdoing, noting the newness of the law’s requirements and general unfamiliarity with them.

This is one reason media’s knowledge of FOIA and attention to public meetings as part of their jobs is so important. It has helped spread knowledge of the law and ensured that the culture of openness that FOIA exists to propagate is being followed. Without these early cases, open meeting violations, whether done wittingly or unwittingly, could have continued, to the detriment of the public at large.

In other cases, media challenges to public bodies and their failure to follow open meetings have expanded the number of organizations subject to FOIA. Across the years, journalists have lodged a number of complaints against bodies who claimed they were not public agencies and therefore did not have to open their meetings to the public or publicize conversations and decisions made during them.

In the majority of cases, the FOIC has found that those agencies were the functional equivalent of a public agency and, therefore, subject to the law. Because of those decisions, meetings were made open, resulting in greater public oversight.

A Worrying Decline

Whether it’s the overall number of complaints being filed, the number of media organizations filing complaints, or the number of complaints involving open meetings, the overall decline in media complaints began around the year 2000.

Around that same time, local journalism started declining in earnest.

According to MuckRack, on average, there’s been a more than 75 percent drop in local journalists across the nation since 2002. On average, there are about 7 journalists per every 100,000 people in Connecticut in 2025, with that ratio swinging pretty dramatically across the state. In Tolland County, there are about 2.7 journalists per 1000,000 people, and in Middlesex County, there are about 11.8 journalists per 100,000 people. As of 2024, the state has about 4.36 news outlets per 100,000 people.

Connecticut’s counties are not currently on MuckRock’s watchlist for areas at risk of becoming a news desert, but the state has not been immune from other issues plaguing local journalism, namely consolidation.

The number of truly independent local papers in the state has declined. Those that have been bought by larger media companies and those that have struggled to remain have faced similar problems: declining revenues, job cuts, and reduced printing.

As newsrooms consolidate or cut positions to try and stay afloat, they’re making decisions about coverage, and there are fewer journalists covering local communities—and the many events that occur there. Rural communities are disproportionately impacted by this phenomenon.

It’s also given rise to a phenomenon of “ghost” newspapers—local dailies and weeklies that still publish but run identical content to other papers that have been subsumed into larger media companies. 

“Many of these papers are still published – sometimes under the same name as in the past – but the quality, quantity and scope of their editorial content are significantly diminished. Routine government meetings are not covered, for example, leaving citizens with little information about proposed tax hikes, local candidates for office or important policy issues that must be decided.” a report from the University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism and Media notes.

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that newsroom employment declined 45 percent between 2004 and 2017.

Where a beat journalist might have once regularly attended a local board’s meetings and noticed any FOIA violations, fewer journalists in the state, and particularly in communities, now means those violations may be going unnoticed when they’re uncovered.

Or, it may mean they’re not discovered until later—increasing the chances that violations of open government recur and creating a culture that is more resistant to transparency.

That phenomenon is evident in the decline of challenges to FOIA abuses being brought by journalists. The drop off is not explained by a decline in the number of cases the FOIC hears; they still issue hundreds of decisions every year and settle more through their ombudsman process.

There are simply fewer journalists in the state paying attention to meetings and filing requests for documents.

Of the Connecticut-based news organizations that have filed FOIC complaints over the last 50 years, almost 44 percent are no longer independent and have been bought by larger media companies. Another 22 percent are no longer in business.

With reduced resources, journalists may also be choosing not to go to the FOIC with violations of the law. Filing a complaint with the commission requires time and effort, which can take away from other aspects of a journalist’s job. Inside Investigator has made evaluations along these lines when considering whether to pursue complaints against FOIA violations.

It may not be just attention to the law that’s declining; it may also be expertise, as journalists’ job descriptions mean they tend to use the law more frequently than the public and have greater knowledge, for instance, of when exemptions are being cited incorrectly. With fewer journalists in the state, that knowledge is at risk of going away.

A Fight Ahead

At the same time journalism is facing unprecedented challenges, Connecticut legislators are introducing more and more legislation that would exempt greater swathes of information from transparency.

According to Secrecy Tracker, a tool from the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project that tracks laws affecting public access to information in states across the nation, there were 44 bills introduced during Connecticut’s 2025 legislative session that either referenced FOIA or amended FOIA.

That’s almost a 50 percent increase in legislation referencing the bill from the previous year, when 25 different bills were introduced.

Brechner’s data only dates back to 2011, but shows a steep rise in the number of bills being filed that impact FOIA, the vast majority of which add to the law’s exemptions.

Some of the bills that would add the most controversial exemptions have so far not passed. However, they are being reintroduced year after year.

During the last session, bills were introduced that would have excluded most documents created by the state’s public universities and would have added a number of categories of public employees to those whose addresses are exempt from disclosure under the law.

Both those bills—or similar versions of those bills—have appeared in previous sessions. In the case of bills seeking to exempt the home addresses of certain public employees, attempts to further amend FOIA date back to 2011. Bills have appeared annually in that time period and frequently since the exemption was first added to the law in 1995, precipitated by concern over a formerly incarcerated individual obtaining the addresses of corrections officers through FOIA.

Efforts to expand that exemption have increased in recent years. During the last session, there were three separate bills seeking to expand the address exemption.

Though journalists may be utilizing and advocating for FOIA less often, the number of complaints the FOIC received annually shows no signs of slowing down. Nor have the number of FOIA requests filed declined.

Many of these are filed by the public, who may be the future of the law, particularly at the municipal level, as local journalism declines. Inside Investigator has covered a number of important FOIA complaints brought by members of the public.

But, there are differences in how the public and journalists use the law. With greater professional experience, journalists sometimes have greater knowledge of where to file FOIA requests and what language to use.

The public doesn’t always have the benefit of that knowledge. The result can be complaints that are baseless and requests that aren’t written in ways likely to lead to record production. Lodging a complaint and taking time to attend hearings at the FOIC can also be a harder burden to bear for private individuals than for journalists.

Then there’s Connecticut’s law allowing public agencies to petition the FOIC to label certain requesters as vexatious. To date, complaints under that law, which can result in an agency not having to answer FOIA requests from an individual for a year if they are found to be using public records requests as a way to harass the government, have been exclusively brought against members of the public. 

And not all complaints brought forward have found the requester in question was engaging in vexatious behavior. There’s a chance that members of the public may be wrongly charged with abusing FOIA because they don’t have the same background in using the law that journalists have traditionally had and because they have fewer resources to help them navigate the request process.

With local journalism declining, it’s impossible to say for certain where the future of the law lies, but these may be the issues that play out in the near future and dictate its future.

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