How Massachusetts makes it so hard to get public records

Have a question about government records? By Massachusetts law, these are supposed to be open and accessible. All you have to do is file a request. (This is often called a FOIA request, short for the Freedom of Information Act.)⁠
But in practice, it’s not as easy as it sounds. “Massachusetts,” one expert told us, “is one of the more secretive states.”⁠
So we wrote a song about it.⁠ (Video by Maria Pemberton for the Boston Globe)