In a 10-month investigation for the San Francisco Public Press, supported by the Fund, reporters Nina Sparling, Frank Bass and Madison Alvarado revealed unsafe living conditions at the city’s Plaza East Apartments, a public housing complex. The facility’s management company had asked for subsidies to demolish and redevelop the hundreds of homes, just 20 years after they were built. Prompted ...
In a three-part series with a grant from the Fund, Carolina Public Press found that in many North Carolina counties, social service agencies are being led by people who don’t meet minimum professional standards required by law. State agencies can’t prevent counties from hiring unqualified people and can’t reverse local hiring decisions. In at least one case, an unqualified agency ...
Honolulu Civil Beat, with support from the Fund, published a three-part investigative series showing significant problems in the development of Hawaii’s largest-ever infrastructure project, a multibillion-dollar elevated rail. Lead reporter Marcel Honore examined 400,000 pieces of information about real estate transactions and property-value increases and interviewed multiple sources over six months. The investigation found that the enormous potential for transit-oriented ...
A new 30-minute documentary, broadcast by New York University’s Inside Lens, examines the federal government’s practice of detaining asylum seekers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The film tells the stories of Celeste and Maria, two undocumented women who endured COVID-19 and who reported human rights abuses while detained at Otay Mesa detention center in San Diego, California. With support from the ...
Investigate Midwest reporter Johnathan Hettinger, with a grant from the Fund, obtained a trove of documents showing internal concerns and debate at the Environmental Protection Agency about more than 400 pet flea and tick products that EPA regulates. Despite EPA staff’s concerns, the pesticides continue to be used in the collars, which could endanger pets and their owners. The documents ...
Freelance reporter Matt Chapman used Illinois’ public records law to reveal that the Chicago Police Department routinely rebuffs requests for records and incorrectly cites the law to justify denials. With a grant from the Fund, Chapman spent several months obtaining and reviewing 350 denials by the police department. In his comprehensive reporting for South Side Weekly, he found that police ...
The Daily Chronicle, which covers several communities in and around DeKalb County in Illinois, is publishing a series that examines the condition of public drinking water system in Sycamore, where residents are complaining about foul smelling, yellowish water running from their taps. With support from The Fund, the newspaper has filed public records request that showed that local officials have ...
In the multi-part series, “Diabetes: The Rising Storm,” Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting founder and reporter Jerry Mitchell, working with a team of students and photographers, exposed the human cost of this killer disease. With a grant from the Fund, the series highlighted the Mississippi Delta, which has the greatest frequency of diabetes of any community in the United States. This story chronicled how ...
The Arkansas Nonprofit News Network published a series of stories that showed that, contrary to officials’ claims, multiple inspectors over several years had missed serious problems on a bridge on Interstate 40 that links Tennessee and Arkansas. Arkansas officials had claimed that one inspector failed to detect a crack in the bridge, and that inspector was fired. With a grant from the Fund, the ...
In an investigation for Georgia Health News, reporter Rebecca Grapevine found that transportation services for Medicaid beneficiaries often leave clients waiting for hours for rides that sometimes never arrive. State Medicaid programs are required to provide transportation to and from healthcare appointments, and they contract with large transportation brokers to provide these services for millions of dollars. During an initial ...