American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop began a new blog yesterday entitled ‘Exemption 10‘ in reference to the unwritten tenth exemption to rejecting a Freedom of Information Act request. Sunlight’s Reporting Group team often runs into frustrating FOIA exemptions in their investigations and even compliance can be galling, such as the 3.5″ floppy disk Sunlight once received. (We are not making this up.)

This new blog will cover open government issues and we’re excited to see a new outlet dedicated to this work. Here’s an excerpt from the inaugural blog post:

We expect to write about case studies (we’d love to hear from you), to discuss court cases dealing with FOIA, to highlight and aggregate coverage from other sources, and to be involved with the FOIA community in Washington and beyond.

And just so there is no confusion, Exemption 10 and the Investigative Reporting Workshop will be strong advocates for government openness. It is the one subject where we believe it is not only appropriate, but also necessary, for news organizations to be deeply involved in the shaping of public policy.

We’d like to help create an even stronger community around this vital issue, which means we’d like your comments, suggestions, case studies and ideas. You can follow us on Twitter @irworkshop or send us email.

A good place to start would be highlighting the Senate’s e-filing bill and possibilities for lobbying reform.