FOIA Gras Housekeeping: Comment Section Policies + 2025 Podcast

I’ve always been told I have a face for radio! 😂

Good Morning! A few housekeeping notes for FOIA Gras as we enter a new era.

Comment Section Rules

Given the events of a week ago, I think we may be entering an time where national politics start to bleed into local politics again (sigh!). So I am going to relax the comment section policy a little bit - here’s my updated policy.

• Discussion of national political topics is OK, given that it is relevant to the story and shows basic decorum (even if I disagree with the content). But I won’t tolerate lengthy debates over national policy issues or generic partisan talking points, I just don’t have the energy to moderate that kind of stuff. Here’s some examples:

  • Allowed: “Trump gutting the Department of Education is a tragedy for the folks involved, but it was mostly full of pencil pushing bureaucrats anyway.” ¹

  • Not Allowed: “People who teach radical gender ideology or critical race theory are groomers!”

• Please continue to respect my request to avoid discussion of private individuals who don’t sit at a dais during a public meeting, make public comments, or are running for office.

  • OK to discuss: Trump, Congresspeople, Representatives, Superintendent, CFO, Dr. Grossi, City Council Members, the Mayor, City Manager, City Clerk, Anyone running for Office, Public Comments made in public settings (in public meetings or other digital settings)

  • Not OK to discuss: Teachers, Principals, Vice Principals, Mid-level Staffers, Random Private Citizens

• Anonymous comments are permitted, but I will impose a slightly higher standard on your comments than non-anonymous. Anonymity is a powerful tool, so I will enforce the rules more strictly on you as a counterbalance.

• One person one account. This has always been the case but if you create a bunch of fake accounts, I can see that and I will get Substack to perma-ban you. If you try to evade this, I will probably personally email you and yell at you.

I offer a slightly more liberal comment section than the other publications in town, and even if you say something I disagree with, I will probably not delete the comment if it follows the above rules. But I don’t have the patience to moderate lengthy national policy arguments or deal with trolls, so if it crosses a line, I reserve the right to nuke the comment/thread.

There are a hundred billion places online you can shitpost about national political stuff, please don’t do it here!

2025 Election Content: A Podcast

In other news, I’ve been debating how to handle the upcoming municipal and school board elections. At first, I was going to only give space to folks I personally endorse. But that got to my head, so I’m probably only going to do limited endorsements. But what I am going to do is give space on the blog to anyone who is running for office to pitch their message.

To avoid blowing up your inboxes with too much FOIA Gras, I’ve been thinking about doing this in the form of a Podcast. In this theoretical podcast, I would sit down with someone running for office, in office, or just an interesting person and we’d talk shop for 30 mins or so.

This would be done in addition to the regularly scheduled programming/journalism I do during election season. It would be completely free and I would put it into Apple Podcasts or whatever app people use for Podcasts.

You have a chance to tell me this is a stupid idea by completing this 3 question survey, or clicking the link below:

If I end up going forward with the Podcast idea, I have three requests for help:

• I need to find a good intro song that I can get the rights to use. It would be nice to find something along these lines with a funky 1990s “world music” vibe.

• I’d like to find an Evanston restaurant that I can record for ~60 minutes once a week to record (from January until May 2025). In exchange, your restaurant gets free promotion on the Podcast² and you’ll get to meet all the folks coming through. If you are that restaurant or know that restaurant, email me: tom@foiagras.com

• I need some good people to interview - if that’s you or you know someone, send me an email tom@foiagras.com. I’ve got a good list in mind. I’d love to start in December potentially with a few test podcasts.

1. FYI this is not my opinion - just sharing an example.

2. Otherwise it will “Coming to you live from the FOIA Gras World Podcast Headquarters at the Burger King on Dempster”