Jaeah Lee, a member of FIJ’s inaugural class of diversity fellows, received the first American Mosaic Journalism Prize for her previous reporting and writing on gun violence. The award includes a $100,000 cash prize and recognizes Lee for work published by California Sunday Magazine, Vice and Mother Jones. Lee is currently completing her FIJ/Schuster Institute diversity fellowship project. Reminder: The ...
As the new year gets into full gear, It’s a good time to look back at the work FIJ grantees have produced. Last year, grant recipients have published about three dozen projects. In December, we feature a trove of stories – including a deep dive into the background of a Kentucky legislator, further risks of corruption in Colombia and stories ...
FIJ/Schuster diversity fellow Lottie Joiner completes her series on recidivism for USA Today by looking at the experiences of men incarcerated in Louisiana, which has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country. In her latest multimedia installments for her “Policing the USA” project, Joiner features former felons getting help from a program called “First 72+,” which is trying ...
Now more than ever, freelance and independent journalists are in a precarious position. They lack the protections and resources of major news outlets, and they don’t always have the funding to pursue their crucial investigations that improve our communities and strengthen our democracy. For a half century, the Fund for Investigative Journalism has supported freelance and independent journalists by providing ...
Washington – The Fund for Investigative Journalism has awarded 16 new grants, totaling nearly $107,000, to support reporting projects on a host of topics. The money goes toward travel, document fees and other expenses incurred by the freelance and independent journalists so they can pursue their investigations. The journalists receiving grants include: Sandra Bartlett, a Toronto-based journalist Abby Ellis, a ...
The Fund for Investigative Journalism has begun recruiting mentors as part of a revamped mentorship program aimed at providing grant recipients access to some of the country’s best investigative journalists. The relaunched program comes with the financial backing of the Scripps Howard Foundation, which recently gave FIJ $5,000. The gift allows FIJ to offer its mentors modest honoraria for their yearlong commitment ...
Steve Burger of WNIN public radio of Indiana delved into the background of a psychologist often hired as an expert court witness after the psychologist was convicted of felony charges for falsifying an evaluation in one case. The psychologist, Albert Fink, had performed dozens of competency evaluations over the last 10 years, and those evaluations were now under question after ...
In her latest package focusing on recidivism in America for USA Today, FIJ/Schuster Institute diversity fellow Lottie Joiner examines how women are faring in a criminal justice system designed with men in mind. Many of the programs that help inmates re-enter society aren’t appropriate for women, Joiner reports. Once an inmate is in the system, it’s hard for her to stay ...
The Fund for Investigative Journalism is proud to announce a pair of gifts that will further the work of independent watchdog journalists. An unsolicited $100,000 gift from the Weissman Family Foundation was a very pleasant surprise. A family representative told FIJ that concerns over an “assault on facts” prompted the foundation’s decision to seek out and financially support an investigative journalism nonprofit. ...
Jeff Kelly Lowenstein has been leading reporters from across the globe in an investigation of the worldwide lottery industry. In the United States, he assembled a team from the Columbia Journalism School and PennLive as part of an ambitious reporting project to better understand how lotteries are gamed by some of their frequent players. The team submitted public records requests ...