Mark Feldstein’s book reveals blackmail and bribery among the shady tactics used by muckraker Jack Anderson. The book’s focal point is the clash between the columnist and President Richard Nixon. A review in The New York Times called the book a “clear-eyed biography” of Anderson which portrays politician and reporter as the “King Kong and Godzilla of sleaze, paranoia, and dirty tricks.” ...
“Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed,” by Judy Pasternak, was released in September 2010. Pasternak investigated the toxic aftermath of uranium mining on Navajo Indian land for the material used in atomic bombs in the 1940s. Radioactive dirt contaminated drinking water, playgrounds, and homes. The poisoning of the land and its people continues to ...
“Normal At Any Cost: Tall Girls, Short Boys, and the Medical Industry’s Quest to Manipulate Height,” by Susan Cohen and Christine Cosgrove, has won a book award from the National Association of Science Writers. The book, published in 2009, was written with support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism. ...
As police pinned Derrick Reed to the hood of a squad car, one thought raced through his mind: “Oh, man. I’m going to go away. I’m 17 now.” The East Garfield Park teen’s coming-of-age story isn’t filled with school dances or football-team tryouts. Rather, the day that shaped his adolescence was Nov. 30, 2009. (Read the series in The Chicago Reporter.) ...
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) ...
WASHINGTON – (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 ...
Todd Melby and Diane Richard’s radio documentary No Brother of Mine offers an unflinching look at U.S. sex offender policy that reaches beyond the headlines and into the lives of real people. Award-winning independent producers Todd Melby and Diane Richard dare to humanize men that society demonizes: convicted sex offenders. Melby and Richard were granted extraordinary access to interview four ...
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 ...
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 ...
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, The Suicide Belt examined how loans used to buy expensive, genetically modified cotton seeds are trapping subsistence farmers in a cycle of debt that ends in shame and, in the most tragic ...