It鈥檚 begun to dawn on me recently that most people have no idea what, exactly, a reporter does.

Over and over, I鈥檓 asked by friends how I find stories.

My usual answer is pretty useless: I try to find something out 鈥� maybe at a city council hearing, maybe through intuition, maybe by keeping my ears open 鈥� and then I write about it.

If I was interviewing me, I鈥檇 roll my eyes and say: 鈥淏ut what do you actually DO?鈥�

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So, I鈥檒l let you in on a key tool of the trade, and then (self-servingly) show you how you can put it to use.

You may have heard of this 鈥渇reedom of information鈥� thing. Basically, every government 鈥� local, provincial and national 鈥� has some law requiring certain information to be accessed by the public.

That info is often public in name only 鈥� most of it can鈥檛 be found online or in easily accessible records.

Part of that is for good reason: There is an ocean of stuff that would swamp computer servers, and many of the public records must first be scoured so that private information remains private. Partly, it鈥檚 also that governments don鈥檛 really want all that stuff out there.

Now, the federal government is subject to its law that is a nightmare to navigate. The Liberals promised to improve it. They haven鈥檛. So let鈥檚 shake our fists in Ottawa鈥檚 direction and skip that whole nightmare for now.

The provincial Freedom of Information law isn鈥檛 perfect. Public bodies routinely abuse exceptions for 鈥減rivate鈥� information, business interests and staff advice, but it鈥檚 markedly better than the feds. In addition to the B.C. government, the law also governs cities, health bodies and municipal police forces.

And here鈥檚 the kicker: There鈥檚 no fee to ask. You can fire up your email right now and ask for some good old public information.

Now, you might not get it. In fact, you probably won鈥檛 because of those aforementioned exceptions. And you may also eventually be asked to pay, if the governmental body in question says that fulfilling your request will take too much time.

But that doesn鈥檛 mean a reporter 鈥� or citizen 鈥� can鈥檛 try.

Last year, the friend of a couple who got T-boned wondered how many other people have been injured in similar crashes. They sent in an FOI request and found revealing statistics that provided ammunition for their argument that changes are needed in the area.

You don鈥檛 have to use fancy questions, and you can ask for a whole range of information. You can request emails between public officials about a certain subject. You can ask for statistics. And you can ask to see any reports that government generates but never shares with the public. Some may even be marked 鈥渃onfidential.鈥�

Over the years, I鈥檝e learned a lot from such requests. But I鈥檝e only scratched the surface. If you turn up something, let your friendly local reporter know (click that 鈥淐ontact鈥� button at the top of this page).

Email your FOI requests for the provincial government to FOI.Requests@gov.bc.ca. To find where to send requests for your municipality, school district, police department, health authority or university, type the public body鈥檚 name into Google and add 鈥渇reedom of information.鈥� While some bodies may have forms to fill out, your request should be handled if you just email the organization in question.

Tyler Olsen is a reporter at the Abbotsford 亚洲天堂