“Obtaining information from many Chicago and Cook County departments is so difficult that many journalists have given up trying.”
So the Chicago Headline Club has concluded, after conducting a survey this year of “reporters’ rights and access” that was funded by the McCormick Foundation.
“State and federal officials were generally more forthcoming but not perfectly transparent,” the survey also found.
Here’s a link to the executive summary of the Headline Club’s report. Here’s a link to the full report.
And here’s a link to the various comments that local journalists who responded to the survey made about their experiences as information gatherers. Some of these comments are vastly more helpful than others.