The Utah Investigative Journalism Project filed more than 170 records requests with 48 local law-enforcement agencies across the state to see what happens to police officers who are disciplined for not properly using body-worn cameras. The records identified 25 officers across 11 agencies with such violations. The reporting, supported by the Fund, also highlighted agencies’ policies for use of body-worn ...
In continuing coverage of a Dallas-based hotelier and Republican megadonor’s efforts to influence local politics, the Texas Observer began digging into his latest venture, a nonprofit organization to address homelessness in Dallas. With support from the Fund, Steven Monacelli traced how the organization positioned itself as a statewide expert and advocate on homelessness, while pushing an agenda to move shelters ...
The State of New York plans to ask a judge to dismiss 500 prison sexual abuse cases because of typos and other technicalities in the victims’ legal filings, according to new reporting in New York Focus and Hell Gate. With support from the Fund, Chris Gelardi and Jessy Edwards have spent months compiling and analyzing data from 1,600 lawsuits filed ...
Cleaning oilfield pollution in West Texas is costly and complicated – and bankruptcy laws let oil companies off the hook, sticking taxpayers with the bill – according to reporting by Martha Pskowski for Inside Climate News. With support from the Fund, Pskowski spent six months investigating contamination and cleanup efforts on property that the city of Midland, Texas, bought to ...
In its ongoing investigation of Hawaii’s child welfare system, with support from the Fund, Honolulu Civil Beat won a legal battle to unseal records that show how one man was allowed to be a foster parent to the boys he sexually preyed on and abused. The records show that the state stood behind the man and continued sending boys to ...
A group of Muslim men in a Missouri prison say they were praying in 2021 when prison officials sprayed mace, cuffed them and placed them in solitary confinement. With support from the Fund, Khawla Nakua, reported on the men’s pending lawsuit and the larger context of a history of allegations of anti-Muslim bias in prisons. She found that one official ...
“Seized,” a feature documentary about the police raid on a Kansas newspaper, will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The film, directed and produced by Sharon Liese, with support from the Fund, takes viewers inside the police raid on the Marion County Record newsroom, which captured national attention. It unfolds in real time through police body-cam and surveillance ...
South Dakota Searchlight, with support from the Fund, is cataloging Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) cases in the state, which has no definitive record of such cases. In collaboration with ICT News, Searchlight is combining data from official databases with names solicited from family members who may have never reported their loved one’s case to authorities. The outlets are ...
When a pair of journalists in Chicago both received questionable rejections for open-records requests, they asked the Fund to support a yearlong investigation into city agencies increasingly using “trade secret exemptions” to block access to information. For the Chicago Reader, Max Blaisdell and Matt Chapman filed 70 records requests across 35 city and county agencies and reviewed 350 denial letters. ...
The federal government’s public-lands grazing system gives private livestock operators access to more than 370,000 square miles of public land across the American West – a system propped up by subsidies that benefits billionaires, mining companies and corporate interests, according to reporting by High Country News and ProPublica, with support from the Fund. For more than a year, the team ...