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- Maya Dukmasova, for her work on segregation and public housing in Chicago.
- Arthur Kane, for his work investigating the Affordable Care Act as well as marijuana legalization in Colorado.
- Lee van der Voo, for development of The Cold Justice Project, a mobile platform for reporting and distributing long-form investigative stories on cold case homicides.
Due to the generosity of an anonymous donor, this fellowship program has allowed IRE to award fellowships for the last seven years, giving freelance journalists a much-needed boost in the pursuit of their investigative work. IRE has assembled an online library of the winners of this fellowship since its inception and some highlights of the work they've done.
These fellowships are for journalists who make their living primarily as freelance/independent journalists. Applications are scrutinized by three experienced freelance journalists; they are ineligible for the award while serving on the committee. Proposals are judged in part on the breadth, significance and potential impact of the investigative project. At the request of the donor, proposals dealing with whistleblowers, business ethics and/or privacy issues will receive priority; projects involving other topics will be given serious consideration by the committee as well. The freelance projects must be published or aired primarily in US outlets.
IRE is a non-profit educational and professional organization of more than 4,500 journalists working to foster excellence in journalism. Founded in 1975, IRE also runs the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism, where IRE is housed. The freelance fellowship is one of many awarded each year by IRE to continue its support of quality investigative journalism.
States have been reducing hospital beds for decades, because of insurance pressures as well as a desire to provide more care outside institutions, USA TODAY reports.
Tight budgets during the recession forced some of the most devastating cuts in recent memory, says Robert Glover, executive director of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. States cut $5 billion in mental health services from 2009 to 2012. In the same period, the country eliminated at least 4,500 public psychiatric hospital beds — nearly 10% of the total supply, he says.
The result is that, all too often, people with mental illness get no care at all.
In a series of stories in the coming months, USA TODAY will explore the human and financial costs that the country pays for not caring more about the 10 million Americans with serious mental illness.
Read the full story here.
"Despite a series of laws over the years that criminalized drunken driving for repeat offenders and made prison time mandatory, James R. Fisher has been arrested 12 times for driving under the influence since 1991," The Wilmington News Journal reported. "The 55-year-old's latest arrest, number 12, came in March, about a year after his release from prison after serving his sentence for a 2009 DUI conviction."
Read the full story here.
"If rivers, rails and roads are the arteries of America's surging petrochemicals industry, tank and barge cleaners are its kidneys, purifying containers so they can return to refineries and to energy and chemical companies across the nation to be refilled," the Houston Chronicle reported. "But government health and safety experts don't know much about these cleaners, how many there are or where they're located, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found."
"OSHA does not even know how many tank cleaning establishments it has inspected, in part because no standard industry code is used by the U.S. Department of Labor for tracking and inspecting them."
Read the Chronicle's full story here.
"A death isn’t officially ruled an overdose until the state medical examiner’s office says so, usually after an autopsy and tests to confirm the presence of drugs in the person’s body. And getting those results can take months or even years, a Patriot Ledger review of death certificates on file in Quincy, Weymouth and Braintree has found. And that can make it difficult for law enforcement officials and organizations looking to combat the growing problem of opiate abuse to track its toll."
Read the Patriot Ledger's story here.
"In a five-part series launched Saturday, the Charlotte Observer reveals that N.C. medical examiners routinely fail to follow crucial investigative steps, raising questions about the accuracy of thousands of death rulings. The living face the consequences. Widows can be cheated out of insurance money. Families may never learn why their loved ones died. Killers can go free," The Observer reported.
Read their full story here.
"A News Tribune investigation found that at least eight cars have plunged into the water at the Narrows Marina boat launch over the past 17 years. Four of 11 occupants were killed. Another was left permanently disabled," the News Tribune reported.
The accidents involved different types of people, from thieves outrunning the cops to an elderly couple who apparently got lost. Two drivers were drunk.
Records from the accidents paint a similar picture: All were the result of lost or confused motorists driving into the water by mistake. All happened in the dark. Most happened at or around high tide. Often it was raining.
The News Tribune found no government safety standards or guidelines specific to private boat launch facilities."
Read the full story here.
"Even as pack-the-house players like Derrick Rose, Jabari Parker and Marcus Jordan led their teams to state titles in recent years, the Illinois High School Association has seen revenues and profits from its marquee state boys basketball tournament plummet," the Chicago-Sun Times reported.
"Between 2006 and last year, profits from the tournament fell by 29 percent, government records filed by the IHSA show. Revenues — mostly from ticket sales — decreased by 17 percent between 2009 and last year."
Read the full story here.
A Seattle Times investigation has found that people like Gregory Benson are now released on technicalities from King County hospitals — without treatment or monitoring — on average every other day.
During a recent 10-week period, at least 35 people deemed by the county to be imminent threats to themselves or others were released after an evaluator did not show up in time — more than 5 percent of the caseload in that period, according to data collected by prosecutors at the request of The Times.
At that rate, 182 severely mentally ill people will be dumped out of the system this year.
Read the full story from The Seattle Times here.
Emergency evacuation calls during the Yarnell Hill Fire were delayed 21 minutes as dispatchers struggled to overcome technological problems, new records obtained by The Arizona Republic and 12 News show.
Even then, only 79 calls went through, meaning hundreds of households in Yarnell and Peeples Valley were never notified, the records show. The new information contradicts previous claims by the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office that its automated alert system, CodeRED, worked as it was supposed to.
Read the full story by The Arizona Republic here.
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