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Heather Brooke


Self Description

June 2009: "Heather Brooke is a journalist and writer living in London. She is the author of ‘Your Right to Know’ (Pluto Press, University of Michigan Press), a citizens’ guide to using the Freedom of Information Act and accessing official information. Most recently, Heather won a High Court case against the House of Commons for the full disclosure of MPs’ second homes allowances. The ruling has resulted in full-scale reform of the Parliamentary expense system. Heather was runner-up for the inaugural Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism and her project ‘Justice by postcode’ for The Times was one of the first examples of computer-assisted reporting in the UK. She is a visiting fellow at City University’s Department of Journalism teaching students about FOI and how to analyse electronic data. She has worked as a consultant for several documentaries for Channel 4 television, investigating such topics as Parliament, Tesco loyalty cards, the DNA database and surveillance technology.

Heather worked as UK project director of the Open Society Justice Initiative’s anti-corruption survey in which she monitored the accountability of three large public-sector projects: the London 2012 Olympics, the NHS Programme for IT and the oil extraction industry. Several of her findings have led to major news stories.

Heather has been interviewed on a number of radio and television shows and she writes articles for The Times, Sunday Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Independent, Evening Standard, New Statesman and other national magazines. She has spoken at conferences hosted by the House of Commons, Lexis Nexis, British and Irish Law Librarians Joint Study Institute, the Society of Editors and the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Heather previously worked at the BBC as an assistant publicist in International Television; a copywriter and, for BBC magazines, a freelance editor, writer and subeditor. Before moving to Britain, she worked in the United States as a newspaper reporter covering state government and criminal justice. For the Spokesman-Review in Washington state, she used the state FOI law to uncover politicians’ misuse of public funds for travel and personal election campaigning. In South Carolina for the Spartanburg Herald-Journal she uncovered flaws in the state’s forensic crime lab and exposed dangerous practices in funeral homes. Both investigations resulted in changes to state law.

Heather is available for training and research on topics related to using the Freedom of Information Act, Environmental Information Regulations and other access laws. She currently teaches the FOIA and investigative journalism course for the National Union of Journalists. She has trained journalists at The Guardian, Financial Times, Independent, Trinity Mirror newspapers, BBC News and BBC World Service."

http://www.yrtk.org/about-author

Third-Party Descriptions

August 2011: 'But Heather Brooke, a freedom-of-information advocate who has written extensively about privacy online, cautioned that such secret negotiations came “with no judicial review or accountability,” adding, “Who’s checking to see whether the police are just going around fishing for information on the whole population, or going for people or groups they don’t like?”'

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/world/europe/26social.html

May 2009: "The [British MP expense reimbursement--Ed.] information came to light only after a multiyear freedom-of-information campaign by Heather Brooke, a U.S. freelance journalist."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/business/media/01iht-cache01.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) BBC World Service Trust Organization Jun 1, 2009
Organization Executive (past or present) Open Society Justice Initiative Organization Jun 1, 2009

Articles and Resources

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Aug 25, 2011 In Britain, a Meeting on Limiting Social Media

QUOTE: British officials and representatives of Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry met Thursday to discuss voluntary ways to limit or restrict the use of social media to combat crime and periods of civil unrest, while trying to dodge charges of hypocrisy and censorship that trailed Prime Minister David Cameron’s call to restrict use of the networks after this month’s riots.

 New York Times
May 31, 2009 Media Cache: The Scoop That Changed Parliament, and News

QUOTE: “When papers pay for documentary information it is very different to paying for an interview, where money can encourage overstatement and even falsehood,” wrote Roy Greenslade, a media commentator...”

 New York Times