As more attention is focused on police accountability, much of the public remains unaware of the doctrine of qualified immunity, which protects many government employees, including law enforcement officers, from being sued for violations of constitutional rights. In a three-part series for New York Amsterdam News, Damaso Reyes and Herb Boyd explored the history of the doctrine, notable cases in ...
More than a year into the pandemic, the Bronx still has the highest death rate from COVID-19 in New York City. In her new podcast episode with Northern California Public Media and The City, “Struggling to Breathe in the Bronx,” Ese Olumhense explores how exposure to air pollution from nearby highways has compounded the effects of COVID-19 from the Bronx ...
For caregivers in Kentucky and Nevada, the pandemic has exposed and exacerbated problems in the states’ foster care systems, in which kinship caregivers shoulder the many burdens of parenting with few of the supports afforded to licensed parents. Graham Ambrose’s new report for The Imprint, co-published by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, and Jackie Valley’s report, co-published by The ...
The Fund for Investigative Journalism teamed up with the Uproot Project and investigative reporters to hold an online forum on covering the environment with a racial equity lens. In this webinar, you’ll hear from several leading journalists, including two of our grantees whose recent stories examine the impact of environmental issues on communities of color. The discussion is moderated by Lottie ...
For six months, Rachel Cohen investigated the D.C. charter school lobby, tracing the history of how the charter sector has evolved over the past two decades. Using public records requests, leaked documents, interviews and archival research, Cohen pieced together a story of how federal intervention, an army of lobbyists and D.C. taxpayer dollars have all helped local charters successfully beat ...
The Northwest Herald published a three-day series tackling what local, state and federal officials in Illinois are doing to mitigate flooding in the Fox River watershed and how northern Illinois residents have been and could be impacted by past and future flooding and stormwater policies. Read the report here. ...
By Eric Ferrero, Executive Director Jo Napolitano’s remarkable new book, “The School I Deserve: Six Young Refugees and Their Fight for Equality in America,” (Beacon Press) is out today. The book details the civil rights battle waged across the country on behalf of immigrant children denied access to education in the nation’s public school system. It tells this larger story through ...
Grants and other support will help journalists in 16 states produce groundbreaking investigative stories WASHINGTON, DC, April 14, 2021 – The Fund for Investigative Journalism today announced that its board of directors awarded grants to reporters for 28 new investigative projects in its most recent round of funding. This is the organization’s largest group of grants in its 52-year history. ...
For children at risk of abuse and neglect, pandemic-induced social distancing created social isolation and less face time with adults like teachers who usually spot and report signs of abuse. And for children living in neglectful or abusive homes, the pandemic was the perfect storm, according to grantee Ashley Hackett’s report for the Washington City Paper.In Washington, D.C., calls to ...
Our grantees at the Documenting COVID-19 Project at Columbia University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation have recently been recognized by The First Amendment Coalition for their work investigating and reporting on the pandemic. In the last several weeks, the team partnered with the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic to collect states’ data-sharing agreements about vaccinations. Earlier this month, the team shared ...