Distributed Reporting Project

The Mayborn Graduate School of Journalism's Distributed Reporting Project serves as a hub of a statewide network of university journalism students working on a number of projects, including the 2005 Light of Day Project at The Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.

This year's project examines how law enforcement agencies around the state are using so-called nonlethal weapons, such as Tasers and stun guns, which have been linked to at least nine deaths in Texas. Students from the University of Texas at Arlington, Texas Christian University, Tarleton State University, and the University of North Texas during recent months have filed more than 500 open records requests with all 254 Texas sheriffs and several hundred police chiefs for records documenting the use of nonlethal weapons and the death of prisoners in law enforcement custody.

Students from the University of Texas at Austin, Southern Methodist University and other colleges are expected to join the project in Spring 2006. Students are writing all public information requests using a template crafted by FOIFT lawyers on FOIFT letterhead, signed by individual students. All responses to these requests are coming back through the FOIFT, where they are logged in and then sent to the Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism, where they are scanned into PDFs and organized alphabetically by county and cities below (Some information has been redacted by FOIFT out of the interest of individual privacy).

Select Alphabetically: A-F | G-L | M-Z

Previous 2003 project is available for viewing here: Report On Terrorism Prisoners Stonewalled.