SUMMARIES OF SELECTED STATEMENTS 2017-25. No requirement to give access to information which had previously been given verbally to another medium as part of an exclusive story A journalist complained to the Ombudsman because the then Ministry of Immigration, Integration and Housing had declined to give him some information which had previously been given verbally to another medium. In the journalist’s opinion, he had been subjected to illegitimate differential treatment. The journalist had asked to be informed whether the Minister supported a parliamentary motion to tighten the rules on deportation of criminal foreign nationals and had been given the reply that the Minister would state her position during the parliamentary debate, which was due to take place two days later. On the day of the parliamentary debate, the journalist learnt that the Minister had given an interview to the other medium the day before and had stated during the interview that the Liberal Party would vote against the motion. It later turned out that the Ministry’s dialogue with the other medium had been initiated the day before the journalist who complained to the Ombudsman contacted the Ministry about the same question. It also emerged that the Ministry had decided to present the Government’s position on the motion as an exclusive story in the other medium. The Ombudsman noted that there are no written sources of law governing the question whether an authority is required to give access to information which it has previously communicated verbally to another medium as part of an exclusive story. For this reason, the issue was to be considered in accordance with the general principles of administrative law on equality and legitimacy. On the one hand, it could be argued that the acceptance of differential treatment which the very recognition of the concept of exclusive stories reflects has the necessary consequence that the further differential treatment constituted by the authority declining to give the same information to another medium will also be legal. On the other hand, it could be regarded as unreasonable if the present situation were to be different from a situation in which the infor­mation had been provided in document form. In the latter situation, the Ministry would as a general rule have been required to give access to the documents under the Access to Public Administration Files Act. 107