At the Game of Thrones Season 6 premiere event in Hollywood last week, showrunner Dan Weiss announced that President Obama would be the only person outside of HBO who would get to see advance screenings of the new episodes. The people who usually get screeners—journalists and other industry people—collectively freaked out as it sunk in that they would have to wait to watch episodes from Season 6 after they properly aired. One intrepid journalist wouldn't take no for an answer: Vanessa Golembewski of Refinery 29 filed a FOIA request for Obama's Game of Thrones screeners.
When Obama asked for the screeners from Weiss, the showrunner felt he had no choice but to, you know, do what the President of the United States asked of him. In her first-hand account on Refinery 29, Golembewski decided it was a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act, a federal law that allows for the disclosure of previously unreleased information controlled by the U.S. government.
Under "Description" on the FOIA request she wrote, "I would like President Obama to share his advance screeners for Game of Thrones with the public." There's an option for the request to be expedited, which should be marked if the request is for a timely, life-threatening matter. Golembewski believed that the unclear fate of Jon Snow was reason enough to warrant marking "yes."
The FOIA tracker consists of five stages: submitted, evaluation, assignment, processing, and closed. Golembewski's request is still in the submitted stage, leaving her in the agonizing process of waiting for it to at least enter the evaluation stage. Even then she'll still have to wait out three more phases.
Golembewski's idea may be far-fetched, but it's a pretty ingenious way to challenge the limits of the FOIA. When it comes down to it, her efforts detail something that Obama should know: it is simply unfair to deprive the people of his country these Game of Thrones screeners.
