Susan Carroll Fellowship
In an extensive investigation into cotton farming and US subsidies, reporters Dan Chapman and Ken Foskett with CAR specialist Megan Clarke of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution take a look at the impact of this “multibillion-dollar entitlement” program on farming here and abroad. They also look at how “farmers game the system to evade subsidy limits, and…
Read MoreReporters from the Arizona Daily Star have put together an extensive investigation into the issues surrounding US-Mexico border security. Their multimedia investigations looks into the issues of why sealing off our borders will not work. “The Star sent a six-member reporting team on a three-week trek from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico…
Read MoreBert Dalmer of the Des Moines Register has written about a grant program in Polk County, Iowa that “smacks of vote-buying, according to one government watchdog group…The money - $1.5 million, given from the beginning of 2004 to the present — originates from gambling profits at Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino in Altoona.” Regulations controlling…
Read MoreA story by Robert Benincasa and Jennifer Brooks of the Gannett News Service shows that the best cardiac care is typically found in higher-income counties. “Using data provided by hospitals to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and covering the period of October 2004 through September 2005, GNS rated the nation’s hospitals on…
Read MoreA.C. Thompson of SF Weekly reports on a scandal within the San Franciso Police Department, “a cloak-and-dagger investigation that may have transgressed the department’s own rules - and definitely torched the careers of a pair of ethical police officers who dared to air their criticisms of the SFPD.” Following the 2003 leak of an internal…
Read MoreThe Center for Public Integrity used federal campaign data to show that “in the 2004 federal races, more than $1.78 billion flowed through a professional corps of consultants whose influence plays an important, though largely unexamined, role in the unrelenting escalation of campaign spending.” John Perry and Agustin Armendariz did the data analysis for the…
Read MoreIn a follow-up to an earlier story on credit card abuse within the Dallas Independent School District, Kent Fischer and Molly Motley Blythe of The Dallas Morning News report that the money used to pay for many of the questionable purchases came from federal grants. “The Dallas Independent School District, already battered by a spate…
Read MoreBrian Ross and Eric Longabardi report for ABC News that foreign student pilots are still finding their way into American flight schools despite strict regulations set in place following 9/11. “Under the program, no foreign national can receive flight training in the United States without approval from the Transportation Security Administration.” But the policy is…
Read MoreMichelle Breidenbach of The (Syracuse, NY) Post-Standard shows how hundreds of New York companies pulled accounting gimmicks and exploited a loophole in the state law to collect millions of dollars in tax breaks. The companies created new corporations and passed themselves off as new on paper, thus becoming eligible for tax breaks intended for businesses…
Read MoreKevin Sack and Craig Pyes, special to The Los Angeles Times, report on misconduct by U.S. Special Forces in Afganistan. On two separate occasions, the Special Forces team concealed the death of Afgan detainees. “What distinguishes these two fatalities from scores of other questionable deaths in U.S. custody is that they were successfully concealed
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