Archive for February 2009
Investigating Chicago public housing demolitions
This story is part of our ongoing coverage of Chicago’s massive plan to demolish old public housing projects and replace them with new neighborhoods that were supposed integrate public housing residents with wealthier families. Under the plan, more than 13,000 apartments were demolished amid a severe affordable housing shortage in the city. The plan’s backers…
Read MoreReporting on unvaccinated kids in schools
Georgia law requires children to be immunized against certain diseases before they can enroll in school. But many metro Atlanta schools and health officials don’t enforce the law, allowing thousands of children to enroll and remain in school without proof of required vaccinations. Public health officials consider school vaccination laws a cornerstone in wiping out…
Read MoreForeign workers hired as banks failed
“Major U.S. banks sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying jobs even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were getting laid off, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.” Frank Bass and Rita Beamish of the Associated Press reported that visa applications…
Read MoreCrisis deepens in Zimbabwe
“How much lower can Zimbabwe sink? Chronic food shortages, hyperinflation, a cholera epidemic, people abducted for speaking out against President Robert Mugabe’s regime — all this is the stuff of daily life for ordinary Zimbabweans, as related here by a journalist in Harare, the capital,” begins the latest dispatch from “One Step From Hell.” It’s…
Read MoreAdding up the cost of football recruits
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution‘s Todd Holcomb used Georgia’s public records law to compare recruiting budgets for college football programs. “It has become big business for big-time athletics programs. Each year, they spend more than $500,000 on recruiting, but they make more than $50 million in annual athletic revenue, mostly from football.” The story shows the range,…
Read MoreHomeland Security USA: The Outtakes
The Center for Investigative Reporting files ongoing reports about what viewers don’t see in the ABC reality TV series, “Homeland Security USA,” which G.W. Shultz characterizes as ” ‘Cops’-style, heart-pounding segments of border agents drawing their weapons on a suspect or airport security seizing smuggled narcotics” with an occasional pause “to focus briefly on the…
Read MoreMaurice Tamman: CAR really bulletproofs a story
At the New Haven, Conn., Better Watchdog Workshop, Maurice Tamman of The Wall Street Journal shared his thoughts on why skills in computer-assisted reporting can help strengthen and legitimize a story. At the IRE workshop, which provides journalists with instruction on the tools needed to be better watchdog journalists, Tamman provided participants with an introduction…
Read MoreA look at Seattle’s suffering real estate market
Working off a report from Zillow.com stating that 29 percent of homes in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area sold at a loss during the final months of 2008, Karen Gaudette and Justin Mayo of The Seattle Times extended the analysis and traced the depreciation trend back to 2005. They also compiled lists of the cities in Snohomish…
Read MoreRaids targeted illegal immigrants with no criminal record
Nina Bernstein of The New York Times reports that, despite the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s January 2004 statement that its officers would focus their efforts on detaining illegal immigrants with criminal records, the agency changed its quotas to facilitate the capture of non-criminal illegal immigrants as well. By 2006, only 9 percent of those detained…
Read MoreRacing company profited off subsidies from city of San Diego
An investigation by The San Diego Union-Tribune has found that Elite Racing, a marathon promotion company, has received subsidies from the city of San Diego. According to the article, “The subsidies stem from a nonprofit charity that San Diego-based Elite Racing created that co-hosts the event. It allows the company to cash in on a…
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