The Fund for Investigative Journalism

(Washington) The upcoming deadline for applications is Monday, September 8 at 5pm Eastern Time. The Fund for Investigative Journalism is currently accepting proposals to investigate stories in the United States and abroad. The Fund supports work done in all media, as long as the applicant can provide a letter from an executive of a media outlet, committing to run the story – as long as it fulfills the proposal and meets the outlet’s journalistic standards.

On this home page, click on “Apply for a Grant” for detailed instructions. If you have further questions about the application process, call 202-662-7564 or email fundfij@gmail.

Washington – The Fund for Investigative Journalism is pleased to announce The Green Park Foundation has awarded $25,000 to support the Fund’s grant-making program for independent journalists around the world.

The Foundation grant underwrites the Fund’s program in the United States and abroad to pay expenses for independent reporters who have the ideas, sources, and know-how to produce groundbreaking investigative journalism, but need resources to get the work done.

The Green Park Foundation’s support over the years has been responsible for enterprise reporting on climate change issues, including the investigation of an energy project in Papua New Guinea that triggered a deadly landslide – and which received US financial backing despite being at cross purposes with President Obama’s pledge to phase out fossil fuels.

The Fund for Investigative Journalism is also supported by The Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, The Park Foundation, The Morton K. and Jane Blaustein Foundation, The Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation, The Gannett Foundation, The Nara Fund, and individual donors, many of them referred by the Catalogue for Philanthropy: Greater Washington.

Pro bono legal services are provided by Dykema Gossett PLLC, a national commercial law firm with a broad portfolio of community service and pro bono clients.

Pro bono business advisory services are provided by Leigh Riddick, Associate Professor of Finance at The American University’s Kogod School of Business.

The Fund makes grants three to four times a year. In the past two years, the Fund has awarded more than $400,000 in investigative reporting grants. The typical grant is around $5,000.

The Fund relies on the support of individuals and foundations. Donations can be made online, www.fij.org, or by mail to the Fund for Investigative Journalism, 529 14^th Street NW – 13^th floor, Washington DC 20045.

Rong Xiaoqing of the Chinese-language Sing Tao Daily has won a Deadline Club Award from the New York City chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, for her story: “The Dark Corner in an Elite High School – Mental Health of Successful Students Needs More Attention.” Rong’s story was a deeply reported examination of the mental health consequences for some students at the highly competitive Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan.

Rong also placed second in the Ippies Award for investigative reporting. The award, sponsored the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, honors work by ethnic and community media in New York. The judges’ comment: “The story showed diligent research on a sensitive and rarely examined subject.”

Matt Rusling reports from Kanchanaburi, Thailand for BorderlessNews on abusive labor brokers who supply workers for the food processing industry.

An excerpt: “Aye” sat cross-legged on a concrete floor and described the violence she has witnessed since she started working at the fruit processing plant. “There are cases where people end up in hospitals – I’m talking broken legs, hands and fractured ribs,” she said, requesting that Borderless not use her real name out of fear of reprisals. “These abuses are always happening but committed secretly. It has been like that for a long time. Someone who dares inform about it can disappear,” she said.

The warning signs were there, but disregarded. Rone Tempest reports on state and federal dollars wasted on a failed Wyoming energy project that had promised to provide electricity throughout the American Southwest.

An excerpt: The Two Elk saga is made up of intertwined stories: one man’s outsized dream; Wyoming’s desire to believe in energy castles in the air, kept aloft by taxpayer dollars; and the federal government’s failure to bring anyone down to earth, until millions of dollars in public money had been squandered. It is, in short, a case study of territorial ambition, personal greed, political nepotism, government malfeasance, and a highly creative interpretation of federal tax laws.

Nick Baumann, for Mother Jones, tells the story of Naji Mansour, an American citizen living abroad who refused to become an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He and his family suffered the consequences.

From the article:  Two weeks into his detention, Naji’s jailers escorted him from his cell into a clean, bright room, where at last he saw a familiar face, a fellow American. It was an FBI agent he’d met with in the past. The agent told Naji that he could end his nightmare. “Help me help you,” he said.

And here is a transcript and audio of FBI agents interviewing Mansour.

Photo credit: David Degner.

From Robert McClure for InvestigateWest and The Tyee, of British Columbia Canada, an investigation of the green energy claims from backers of burning “biomass” for fuel. In theory, the plants and trees burned are renewable, and therefore “green” as a source of energy.  But the smoke produced clouds the sunny portrait of a carbon-neutral alternative.

Photo credit: Paul Joseph Brown/ecosystemphoto.com

From Ian Shearn, published in The Nation, the story of a U.S. government decision to make a $3 billion loan which contradicted President Obama’s pledge to address climate change by phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. Shearn uncovered evidence that the project was the cause of a deadly landslide and has continuing disastrous impacts on the local environment and communities of Papua New Guinea.

The Huffington Post also ran a compelling short documentary on the story with interviews from local residents, and officials.

An excerpt from The Nation article: “The ExxonMobil loan was hardly the only exception to [President Obama's] stated position. Since Obama took office, the Export-Import Bank has invested more than $27 billion in fossil fuel endeavors, while lending less than $2 billion to clean energy projects.”

Photo credit: Olivier Pollet

Reid Frazier has won a regional Edward R. Murrow Award, from the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) for his series “The Coming Chemical Boom.” His investigation aired on The Allegheny Front, a program carried by Pennsylvania public radio stations.

In a series of reports to inform his audience on what might happen when the petrochemical industry comes to Pennsylvania as proposed, Frazier traveled to Texas and Louisiana to report on conditions there – where the chemical industry is booming, thanks to cheap natural gas. In Houston, he found the chemical plants brought economic benefits, but that air quality suffered, increasing the risk of cancer, asthma, and heart disease.

Photo by Reid Frazier.

From Joseph Sorrentino for the Sante Fe Reporter and In These Times, the story of real estate con games that prey upon the poor in New Mexico.

An excerpt: “People are losing their land and their money to suspect real estate deals. They’re also buying land thinking they can live there, only to learn too late that they can’t.”

“Many people buying land in colonias are Mexican or Mexican-American, and they often speak and read only Spanish; contracts are almost always in English. Further, there’s no requirement for sellers to produce a title or title insurance to prove that they actually have the rights to the land.”

Photo courtesy of Joseph Sorrentino.