When a billion gallons of coal ash broke loose from a holding pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s power plant near Harriman, Tenn. in December 2008, registered nurse Penny Dodson was living nearby with her 18-month-old grandson, Evyn. Like most of her neighbors, Dodson never gave much thought.. (Read the 5-part series in Facing South)
President
Brant Houston
University of Illinois
Treasurer
Peter Eisler
USA Today
Assistant Treasurer
Charles Lewis
Investigative Reporting Workshop
Board Members
Margaret Engel
Alicia Patterson Foundation
Gary Fields
The Wall Street Journal
Sara Fritz
Publisher, Youth Today
James Grimaldi
The Washington Post
Stephanie Mencimer
Mother Jones
Alicia Shepard
National Public Radio
Terence Smith
The NewsHour
Patrick J. Sloyan
Newsday
Advisory Board Members
George Lardner
Center for the Study of the Presidency
Deborah Nelson
Philip Merrill College of Journalism
Clarence Page
Chicago Tribune
Grant Application Deadline: September 8, 2010 |
How FIJ Helped to Uncover the My Lai Massacre
Click here to hear veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh tell how - with financial support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism - he learned about the massacre of civilians in Vietnam, how he tracked down Lt. William Calley and, in so doing, changed the world's perception of American intervention in Southeast Asia. It demonstrates how small grants from our fund have enabled talented journalists to produce big, important stories,changing the course of history. |
Coal’s Dirty SecretFIJ Awards Grants to Investigative Journalists in America and AbroadWASHINGTON – (July 1, 2010) The Board of Directors of the Fund for Investigative Journalism has awarded grants totaling $48,000 for thirteen investigative reporting projects that will be published or broadcast by local, regional, and overseas media. The names and projects of recipients are confidential until their work is completed, but the topics supported by the latest round of Fund grants include investigations of the misuse of federal funds, corrupt public servants in the US and abroad, and unmitigated environmental hazards. Many of the grants will support multi-media projects and emerging media, including nonprofit investigative centers and ethnic media in the United States. In addition to domestic stories, the Board approved funding for investigative projects in Laos, Iraq, Afghanistan, South America, and Africa. The Fund for Investigative Journalism is an independent, non-profit organization that has supported hundreds of public service reporting projects since 1969, when it provided funding for Seymour Hersh’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the massacre of Vietnamese civilians in My Lai. Since then, recipients of Fund grants have won nearly every major award in journalism, including another Pulitzer Prize, the George Polk Award, and two National Magazine Awards. Recently released work has continued to win accolades. Columbia University graduate students Habiba Nosheen and Hilke Schellmann were finalists for the 2010 Investigative Reporters and Editors Student Award for their documentary on unlicensed surrogacy agencies. Reporting by Scott Carney on investigations of children kidnapped in India for adoption in America won the 2010 Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism award. Links to their award winning work can be found on the FIJ website, www.fij.org, along with groundbreaking reports on the devastating second-generation health consequences from Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War, the abuse of prisoners at secret detention sites in Afghanistan, and the recycled use of lead and arsenic-laced ash from coal-burning power plants in construction materials throughout the United States. Writers supported by the Fund have impact well after their initial work is published. Jason Berry’s reporting on sexual abuse by a prominent Roman Catholic priest was cited as groundbreaking in recent coverage by the New York Times. The Fund was founded by Philip Stern, a progressive-minded philanthropist who believed that by putting a small amount of money into the hands of aggressive reporters, they would generate stories that would, as he put it, help “balance the scales of justice.” The Fund supports investigative projects solely through contributions from individuals and grants from private foundations such as the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. More...No Brother of Mine
America’s Secret Afghan Prisons
Seeds of Discord
The Suicide Belt
A Story from Burma’s Never-Ending War
Shadow of Doubt
Human Trafficking
<b>TIM MATSUI</b> – <a target=blank class=more href=”http://www.timmatsui.com”>The Seattle photojournalist</a> traveled to Cambodia to document human trafficking. He contributed to a multi-media investigative series on trafficking <a target=blank class=more href=”http://www.kuow.org/specials/humantrafficking_resourcelist.php”>published online</a> by <i>KUOW Radio</i> (Seattle). Top Predator
FIJ receives a $100,000 grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism FoundationWASHINGTON DC (February 23, 2010) — The Fund for Investigative Journalism is proud to announce it has received a $100,000 grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, based in Oklahoma City. The grant will support reporters working on investigative stories that focus on their states and local communities. It also will provide funds for investigations done by reporters in the ethnic media. “This grant will address a pressing need for watchdog reporting in regions where newsroom cutbacks have hollowed out investigative staffs and in communities covered by the ethnic media,” said Brant Houston, president of the Fund. Houston said the Foundation, www.journalismfoundation.org, is playing a key role in ensuring that investigative reporting continues to flourish across the nation by supporting the Fund and other nonprofit journalism efforts. More...Sandy Bergo appointed executive director of The Fund for Investigative Journalism.WASHINGTON (January 15, 2010) — Sandy Bergo, an experienced investigative reporter, has been chosen to serve as executive director of The Fund for Investigative Journalism. Bergo, who replaces Cheryl Arvidson, has previously worked as an investigative producer for WBBM-TV (Chicago) and WJLA-TV (Washington DC), a senior writer for the Center for Public Integrity, and a freelance investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and The Washington Monthly. She shared in many awards for her work in television, including the DuPont-Columbia Award, the Peabody Award, and the Investigative Reporting and Editors Award. The Fund is a nonprofit organization with a 40 year history of supporting independent investigative reporters with grants ranging from $500 to $10,000. These grants help launch groundbreaking work exposing corruption, malfeasance, incompetence, and societal ills. Shortly after the public-spirited philanthropist Philip M. Stern founded the Fund, it awarded small grants to pay Seymour Hersh’s expenses for investigating the My Lai massacre. More...Agent Orange: A Lethal Legacy
Guatemala: A Tale of Two Villages
Murder in the High Himalaya
“Murder in the High Himalaya is the unforgettable account of the brutal killing of Kelsang Namtso—a seventeen-year-old Tibetan nun fleeing to India—by Chinese border guards. Witnessed by dozens of Western climbers, Kelsang’s death sparked an international debate over China’s savage oppression of Tibet. Adventure reporter Jonathan Green has gained rare entrance into this shadow-land at the rooftop of the world. In his affecting portrait of modern Tibet, Green raises enduring questions about morality and the lengths we go to achieve freedom.” More...The Spy Who Loved Us
Pham Xuan An was a brilliant journalist and an even better spy. A long-time correspondent for Time and friendly with all the legendary reporters covering Vietnam, he was an invaluable source of news and font of wisdom on all things Vietnamese. At the same time, he was a masterful double agent, a North Vietnamese intelligence agent whose secret reports were so admired by Ho Chi Minh that he clapped his hands with glee on receiving them and exclaimed, “We are now in the United States’ war room!” An inspired shape-shifter who kept his cover in place until the day he died, Pham Xuan An ranks as one of the preeminent spies of the twentieth century.” More...Halliburton’s Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War
“From Halliburton’s vital mission as the logistical backbone of the U.S. occupation in Iraq—without it there could be no war or occupation—to its role in covering up gang-rape among its personnel in Baghdad, Halliburton’s Army is a devastating exposé of corporate malfeasance and political cronyism. In shocking detail it shows how Halliburton and its former subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) really do business in Iraq, and around the world. “ More...Normal at Any Cost
Good Germs, Bad Germs
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Todd Melby and Diane Richard’s radio documentary
Anand Gopal’s article in The Nation exposed how innocent people were killed in U.S. military raids on homes in Afghanistan; others disappeared following the raids. Conducted at night, these raids are even more feared and hated than Coalition air strikes. Gopal also investigates detainee abuse in secret jails on US military bases in Afghanistan. He reports that prisoner mistreatment shifted to these remote secret “field detention sites” after abuses were exposed at the Bagram Air Base prison. The story,
Kenyan Journalist John Kamau unearthed archival documents that for the first time revealed just how land initially occupied by white settlers in colonial Kenya was transferred to politicians and their allies shortly after the country became independent. These unjust land practices have had a lasting impact in Kenya, contributing to political violence after the 2007 elections. Kamau details how funds from both the World Bank and UK Government – meant to settle the landless in the 1960s – were squandered.
Trevor Aaronson traveled to rural India to investigate the reasons why more than 200,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves in the last decade. Published in Columbia City Paper,
MAC McCLELLAND – In the April 2010 issue of Mother Jones, Mac McClelland reports on refugees who are documenting cases of human rights violations, torture, and genocide in Burma. She also turned her research into the book
Shadow of Doubt: Probing the Supreme Court, by Marites Vitug, is the first book to lift the veil off the elusive Philippine Supreme Court. It looks at the inner workings of the Court, the least scrutinized of the three branches of government, including how the Justices arrive at decisions and the dynamics between the Supreme Court and the executive branch. The secrecy surrounding the Court has a direct impact on the quality of appointments. Vitug writes that loyalty to the appointing power is more important than merit in selecting people for the Supreme Court in the Philippines.
TIM MATSUI –
Christopher Pala
WASHINGTON (January 7, 2010) – Chicago Tribune reporters Jason Grotto and Tim Jones authored
Greg Brosnan and Jennifer Szymaszek produced a video,
Murder in the High Himalaya, a book by Jonathan Green about the brutal murder of a 17-year-old nun fleeing to India by Chinese border guards. Will be published in the Spring of 2010.
Thomas A. Bass’
Pratap Chatterlee’s Halliburton’s Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War, published by Nation Books, was written up in Vanity Fair and praised in other reviews. The book received FIJ’S 2005 Robert I. Friedman award.
Susan Cohen and Christine Cosgrove’s Normal at Any Cost, was the recipient of FIJ’s $25,000 book award in 2003. The book about hormones that affect the growth of children, was published in March 2009 and widely reviewed.
Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial World by Jessica Snyder Sachs, winner of the 2005 book award, has been published by Hill and Wang and is available in bookstores. Her argument is that “antibiotic resistance now ranks among the gravest medical problems of modern times”.