My Resignation Letter

You can't fire me, I quit!

This is the end of FOIA Gras. This project was a hobby, an experiment, and a way to help improve the schools for our kids. It has become a job, and as of today, I quit.

This has been building for some time, and older readers remember that I almost quit way back in December 2023. Lately, I’ve received an enormous amount of pushback on my editorial decisions (ie what I publish or not). One example surfaced yesterday in the form of a story in the Free Press, about the Haven noose incident.

I felt like my editorial hands were tied and I had to publish on this now, so I reached out to the parent in the Free Press story for comment;

Rudeness aside, he’s right, the story is newsworthy. However, I didn’t publish about this incident because I didn’t have permission from the parents of the primary child indicted. Many adults in this town have acted shamefully with self-interest on the back of a child, where nobody (including you, me, or anyone besides the child and their family) knows the full story. I refuse to be part of this bad behavior. You’re welcome to disagree with this, and surely the Free Press does, but this is my decision and that is theirs.

This isn’t the only case of heated editorial criticism - the last few months of city and school district elections have filled my phone and inbox with anonymous sniping, editorial complaints (“why aren’t you dunking on candidate X!?”), and conspiracies. I tried to cover the election fairly, and I think I did an okay job, but it is miserable work that gazes directly into the petty cruelty of local politics.

I’ve always thought of myself as a parent and neighbor first, and a journalist second. I think this operation has reached a point where this dynamic needs to flip. My haters are quick to point out that I have no formal journalism training, and I’m just a loser with a blog. They’re right - for this to continue, I need to treat this more like a by-the-book journalism operation. That’s a full-time job and not one I want to do.

You can accuse me of being thin-skinned and giving in to criticism, and you’re probably right. But this was a hobby, an experiment, and not my full-time career. It’s rendered a considerable toll on my mental well-being, my professional day-to-day career, my finances, and my relationships. I always told myself if the fun is gone, I can walk away, and the fun is gone.

I don’t feel good about the future of journalism. The incentives are broken. For instance, the more loudly biased I am against equity, the more people throw money at me. I don’t feel good about that. This is a massive national issue - there is very little money in the pursuit of truth. Over 2.5 years, I’ve made about $10,000 in donation revenue (via Substack Subscriptions) to the site, but I’m deep in the red. Between researcher costs, lawyers, taxes, recurring software, and document retrieval costs - it’s a horrible business model. Maybe I’m bad at business but I am skeptical that FOIA Gras-style citizen journalism is the path.

I think this site (and the comment section) served as a valuable community space for a while. Fortunately, good alternatives exist now and I think the Evanston Reddit community /r/reddit is a suitable replacement for my comment section.

I’m going to keep the site up up for the next year in read-only mode, but on March 30, 2026 - the lights will turn off and I will sell the domain name. I’m sure it will all be archived on the Wayback Machine. I’m going to cease posting to Substack Notes, Reddit, and exfiltrate myself from public life as much as possible. You’re welcome to continue to email me, but don’t be offended when I don’t respond.

If you had a paid subscription, I’m going to flip it to “Lifetime Comp” today so that you won’t be billed anymore. If you prepaid the $50 and would like a refund, please email me: tom@foiagras.com and I will return your money promptly.

Many readers have shown me kindness, and I appreciate your grace. But I’ve devoted 2.5 years of my life to this and I’m at a fork in the road and it’s time to move on.

I leave you with a favorite song of mine.