Washington – The Fund for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) has awarded $58,500 to cover the costs of eleven new investigations being undertaken by independent reporters in the US and around the world. The grants help freelance journalists and nonprofit news centers with reporting expenses such as travel and document fees. The journalists receiving grants include: Daffodil Altan, Investigative Reporting Program, University ...
Four of FIJ’s diversity fellows came from near and far to attend this year’s Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Phoenix this past June. For the fellows, it was more than just about learning new skills. It was also about being part of a community. FIJ Board President Ricardo Sandoval-Palos joined the FIJ/Schuster fellows for a reception. Michele Chabin traveled ...
An investigation led by Fabiola Torres on behalf of Ojo-publico.com reveals the pressure exerted by pharmaceutical companies across Latin America to prolong their monopolies via diplomatic lobbying, court action and the use of the patent system to stifle competition. The result offers a glimpse at questionable practices that make it difficult for some of the region’s most vulnerable populations gain access to ...
Prosecutors in Louisiana are diverting traffic fines to their coffers, depriving public defenders and other agencies of much-needed revenue. An investigation by Samantha Sunne on behalf of The Lens, shows that an increasing number of District Attorneys across the state are using a pre-trial diversion program to keep traffic fines for themselves. Ordinarily, traffic tickets go through the court system and ...
A two-year investigation found that seed-corn companies like Monsanto use contractors to recruit thousands of migrant farm workers for producing hybrid corn seeds in an $11 billion industry. According to the investigation by Laird Townsend for the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, the use of contractors has led to repeated allegations of labor violations over the past decade against Monsanto, ...
Hella Winston examined 263 wrongful murder convictions for her piece published by the Daily Beast and found that prosecutors brought charges against a new suspect in just 7 percent of those cases. It’s partly because prosecutors don’t want to acknowledge their mistakes and the challenges they face in successfully prosecuting another suspect after an earlier conviction has been thrown out. ...
If domestic abuse is one of the most underreported crimes, domestic abuse by police officers is virtually an invisible one, according to compelling report by Melissa Jeltsen and Dana Liebelson for the Huffington Post. Because there are no government statistics, it is nearly impossible to calculate the frequency of domestic crimes committed by police—not least because victims are often reluctant to seek help ...
In a series of reports for The California Report, Chris Richard investigated the long-stalled cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Los Angeles. He describes how NASA and the Department of Energy failed to fulfill their legal commitments to remove the contamination they and other federal agencies caused, including the radiation from a partial nuclear meltdown a half century ago. Richard reports ...
Over the past 15 years, the U.S. government has quietly released more than 400 people convicted on international terrorism-related charges. Some were deported to other countries following their prison terms, but a large number of convicted terrorists are living in the United States. Reporting for the Intercept, Trevor Aaronson tells this story through the case of the Liberty City Seven, ...
In the last four years twenty-one members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have been convicted of federal crimes, including the department’s popular former sheriff Lee Baca, causing the head of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, to describe the LASD as having a “toxic culture of corruption seen only in the movies.” A three-part investigation by WitnessLA by Celeste Fremon ...