Dear Sir or Madam,

I would like to make a request under the Freedom of Information
Act. Please would you consult your FOI records/processing logs, and
tell me:

How many FOI requests have been received by the House of Commons
since 2005 from employees of the following major UK news
organisations:

BBC

ITN

Sky News

Bloomberg

Financial Times

Economist

Daily and Sunday Telegraph

The Times

The Sunday Times

The Independent

The Independent on Sunday

The Guardian

the Observer

Daily Mail

Mail on Sunday

The Sun

News of The World

Daily and Sunday Mirror

Daily and Sunday Express

Daily Star

The Morning Star

The Scotsman

Scotland on Sunday

The Herald

The Business

Prospect

The Spectator

The New Statesman

Please would you also indicate how many of these requests were
granted, and how many were refused because of provisions in the
Freedom of Information Act.

Where requests were refused for reasons other than those laid out
in the Freedom of Information Act, please would you give a brief
summary of the reasons that were given for refusing those requests.

I fully understand that not all FOI requesters who work for the
above news organisations will have made their affiliation clear to
the House of Commons when they made their request, and I would not
wish to make the process especially drawn out by asking you to dig
into the sponsoring organisations of all requesters. However, I
have no doubt that many requests will have been made by journalists
or researchers giving postal addresses or emails affiliated with
the above organisations, and I hope that you would be able to use
this information to fulfil this FOI request.

Many thanks for your help with this matter.

Yours faithfully,

Etienne Pollard

Dear Etienne Pollard,

Thank you for your email dated 8 March 2008 which was received today
(10th). We shall deal with your request promptly and let you have a
response by 9 April 2008.

If you have any queries about your request, please contact me.

Mandy Kelly
Freedom of Information Assistant
020 7219 8805

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Dear Etienne Pollard

This information is not held.

As you note, there is no requirement under the Act for requesters to
identify the organisations for which they work or, indeed to provide
anything other than a name (which does not have to be verified) and
return address. While in some cases assumptions can be made about the
identity of one or another media organisation from an email address,
that is not the same thing as the requester actually representing that
organisation or even being an employee, journalist researcher or
otherwise.

The House will consider complaints in relation to its handling of this
request. These should be addressed to [House of Commons request email] Please
ensure that you specify the nature of your complaint and any arguments
or points that you wish to make. If you remain dissatisfied, you may
appeal to the Information Commissioner at Wycliffe House, Water Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely

Bob Castle

_________________________________________________
Bob Castle
House of Commons Data Protection and Freedom of Information Officer

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