This page is written for records officers, agency counsel and other reporters. It says who publishes Crime Docket, how we publish, and why we qualify as a news organization under the open-records laws we use.

Publisher

Crime Docket is published by Crimedocket Media LLC, a Michigan company. We report in writing at crimedocket.com and in documentary form on YouTube at @CrimeDocketdotcom. Reporting runs under the Crime Docket Editorial Desk byline. The site’s editor writes under the pen name Jack Rancher, which is disclosed on our About page.

The newsroom

We are small: a writing desk, a records desk, and a production hand. What we lack in headcount we make up for in patience with paperwork. Our methods are set out in our Editorial Standards. Anyone named in our coverage can ask for a correction or a right of reply through the Corrections page, and we answer.

A representative of the news media

Under the federal Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii), and the state laws modeled on it, an outlet is a representative of the news media when it gathers information of interest to the public, uses editorial skill to turn raw material into a distinct work, and distributes that work to an audience. That is a description of our workday.

We obtain court filings, police and incident reports, medical-examiner findings and recorded interviews, mostly by requesting them ourselves. We read them, check them against one another, and write and film from them. Then we publish the result, here and on our channel, on a continuing basis. Recent examples: an episode companion built from an arrest-warrant affidavit and a state supreme court opinion, and two pieces on agencies that declined to release closed-case files, in Las Vegas and Orange County, Florida.

When we request records we ask for the fee treatment the law gives news-media requesters and, where the public interest supports it, a fee waiver. Those are two different asks and we make them separately. The purpose is to inform the public; the records are not put to any commercial use.

The Records Desk

Requests go out under the signature of Rozanne Powell, our records researcher and paralegal, on behalf of Crimedocket Media LLC. Agency correspondence goes to foia@crimedocket.com. Statutory response deadlines are tracked, and we follow up when they pass. Where a request was mailed, the return address is on the letter. More on how the desk works is on the Records Desk page.

Press and records inquiries