The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
In a second installment of “Chemical Fallout,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters Susanne Rust, Meg Kissinger and Cary Spivak found that the chemical industry has funded much of the science claiming that the popular chemical bisphenol A is safe. The reporters built a database of 258 scientific studies spanning 20 years of research into the chemical…
Read MoreDana Priest and Anne Hull of The Washington Post delve into the case of 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, who was recently court-martialed for attempting suicide and endangering the life of another officer while in Iraq. The authors trace Whiteside’s career in the army and detail her many successes. Whiteside’s defense is that she committed her…
Read MoreLee Rood of The Des Moines Register finds that testing fees paid to the non-profit ACT Inc. of Iowa City are lining the pockets of its board of directors. “ACT, the college-entrance exam developer that has grown increasingly successful in taking on longtime rival SAT, is paying its influential board of directors about $520,000 annually…
Read MoreMatthew D. La Plante of The Salt Lake Tribune reports on workers from developing nations who are are employed by private security contractors working for the U.S. in Iraq. Federal reports suggest that four-fifths of the armed contractors come from other countries, and some earn as little as $31 per day. Human rights advocates say…
Read MoreSusan Kelleher and Justin Mayo of The Seattle Times looked at how older borrowers and homeowners are targeted for predatory loans. Analysis of over 4,000 loans from Ameriquest Mortgage uncovered the trend of elderly homeowners being targeted for subprime refinancing that they would never be able to repay, resulting in the loss of their home…
Read MoreThe Star Tribune spent months reconstructing the locations and identities of the more than 150 people who were on the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis when it collapsed into the Mississippi River on August 1. With the help of an aerial photo, an interactive Flash graphic titled “13 Seconds in August” offers the most comprehensive…
Read MoreThis series by The Columbus Dispatch delved into the origins of fake goods that are so common throughout the U.S. The paper sent reporter Jeffrey Sheban and photographer Jeff Hinckley to China, Hong-Kong, Taiwan and Thailand to trace the path that brings counterfeit goods from Asia into the U.S. The series covers how fakes are…
Read MoreThe Dallas Morning News investigated the widespread property tax delinquency that plagues Texas. Reporters Kevin Krause and Molly Motley-Blythe attacked the problem from all angles, including which types of organizations are likely not to pay taxes, what sorts of excuses they use, and how the delinquency affects tax-run programs and other tax payers. Furthermore, the…
Read MoreA survey by The Salt Lake Tribune of Division 1-A schools exposed extreme differences in how drug-testing programs are administered from school to school. Through FOIA requests, The Tribune “requested detailed information on student-athlete drug testing programs administered by the schools themselves, separate from the NCAA.” Findings show that broken systems allow students to abuse…
Read MoreSusanne Rust, Meg Kissinger and Cary Spivak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reviewed more than 250 scientific studies and examined thousands of pages of regulatory documents for their investigation detailing the failure of the federal government to regulate chemicals known as endocrine disruptors. The Environmental Protection Agency promised a decade ago to screen 15,000 chemicals,…
Read More