LA Times blogger Andrew Malcolm (R-CA) snarks about Obama administration transparency, employing some statistical slight-of-hand in the process. Malcolm writes:

The White House Democratic administration of Barack Obama, who denounced his presidential predecessor George W. Bush as the most secretive in history, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than the Republican did.

...

An Associated Press examination of 17 major agencies' handling of FOIA requests found denials 466,872 times, an increase of nearly 50% from the 2008 fiscal year under Bush.

Malcolm linked to the Fox News version of that AP article. Had he read this one, he might have been able to give readers a more accurate report.

First of all, according to the AP, there have not been 466,872 denials. There have been 466, 872 citations of FOIA exemptions -- a significant difference because, as AP notes, “Agencies often cite more than one exemption when withholding part or all of the material sought in an open-records request.”

Now, notice that “part or all of” bit. Contrary to Malcolm's implication, there have not been 466,872 blanket rejections of FOIA requests. Nor have there been 466,872 citations of FOIA exemptions for the purpose of rejecting an entire FOIA request. There have been 466,872 citations of exemptions for the purposes of denying part or all of a request. Indeed, there has been a decrease in the number of FOIA requests denied in their entirety:

They denied FOIA requests in their entirety based on exemptions 20,005 times last fiscal year, compared with 21,057 times the previous year.

Malcolm didn't include those numbers, so reading his post, you'd think there has been a 50 percent increase in blanket rejections. That isn't true -- there's been a decrease. Granted, the real numbers still don't look great from a transparency standpoint. But Malcolm is playing fast and loose with the facts and making things appear worse than they are.