The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
The Seattle Times kicked off an occasional series on Congressional earmarks, the companies that benefit and the political fundraising connected to the pork projects. David Heath and Hal Bernton report that, after months of collecting and checking data from press releases and campaign finance reports, they were able to “tie about half of the 2,700…
Read MoreAmy Lynch of The San Jose Mercury News reports on environmental issues plaguing Santa Clara County. The county has more toxic cleanup sites involving old orchard pesticides than any county in California, as well as a significant number of other sites contaminated by other types of farming or pesticide handling, according to a Mercury News…
Read MoreDonors are skirting campaign finance laws by making campaign contributions in their young children’s names according to a report by Matthew Mosk of The Washington Post. “Although campaign finance laws set a limit of $2,300 per donor per campaign, they do not explicitly bar donors based on age. And young donors abound in the fundraising…
Read MoreA report by Mc Nelly Torres of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel shows that 34 percent of gas pumps in South Florida failed accuracy tests over the past three years. “The analysis found 580 of more than 2,500 stations in South Florida had at least one pump dispensing more gas than customers paid to purchase, while…
Read MoreDavid Josar of The Detroit News investigated possibly abuses by the the city’s Hardship Committee, which grants millions in property tax exemptions intended for the poor but keeps no notes at its meetings, does not verify applicants’ claims and has never been audited. The News‘ three-month investigation found that some exemptions were granted to property…
Read MoreGarry Lenton of the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., reports on the increased average size of high school football players. The newspaper used high school football rosters from 1988 and 2006, calculating the body mass index of 800 players total and finding that “Eighteen percent of 2006 players had a body mass index of 30 or…
Read MoreOver a 12-month period, investigative reporter Loretta Tofani traveled to China, examining worker conditions and “observed first-hand how Chinese workers routinely risk their health and sometimes their lives making products for export to the United States and other countries.” Her series, printed in the Salt Lake Tribune, tells of workers using dangerous, outdated machines, sometimes…
Read MorePBS’ Bill Moyers Journal features Jeremy Scahill, author of a book about Blackwater, a private U.S.-based company that is one of the largest private security contractors in Iraq, where its assignments have included protecting individuals and guarding the U.S. embassy. Scahill’s interview comes in the wake of Congressional hearings after the company’s employees were implicated…
Read MoreScott Reeder, writing for Quad-CitiesOnline.com, found that Illinois ranked 49th in a nationwide analysis of disciplinary actions against teachers. The state has no system in place to investigate or flag teachers accused of misconduct. To determine how Illinois compares to other states, Small Newspaper Group obtained information on 20,000 cases of teacher licensure discipline from…
Read MoreThe Wall Street Journal‘s Brody Mullins surveys the widespread influence of “bundling,” collecting individual donations and rolling them together into high-dollar, high-impact political fundraising. Although the term gained notoriety after the arrest of Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu, bundling is a longstanding and legal campaign tactic. Brody writes that “bundling has become the chief source of…
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