Storybench: “A recent Gallup poll reaffirmed what we already know-the public’s trust in the media keeps sinking. So what’s a committed reporter to do? One answer is to take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, to request public records to bolster one’s story. Agencies at the local, state and federal level produce thousands of records every day, most of which are never reported on but which often have stories of their own to tell. But the systems in place to submit, process and fulfill those requests can be painfully antiquated and decentralized. Luckily in the last few years a number of online tools have emerged to further digitize and streamline the open records process including iFOIA.org from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Vanderbilt University’s First Amendment Center, and Citizen.org. Here we’ll focus on one company, MuckRock, and the public records tools and community it provides. (Disclosure: The author used to be employed by MuckRock.) This week MuckRock released an installment of its project on the U.S. prison system, a look at the solitary confinement policies of six New England States. With some rare luck, a public records request can even land one’s reporting on a place like The Daily Show, as this request for CIA cafeteria complaints did in a bit featuring Jerry Seinfeld dubbed “Zero Dark Foodie“.