The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
Earlier this year, Congress passed a major spending bill that it promoted as being stripped of all earmarks and a strike against pork-barrel spending. But even as the bill passed, a joint investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting and the Los Angeles Times reveals top Democrats and members of both parties deluged government agencies…
Read MoreThe gruesome 2004 massacre of four Blackwater USA security guards is being blamed on their Baghdad site manager, Tom Powell, accoring to documents obtained by The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer. Joseph Neff reports that memos reveal the Bravo 2 and November 1 squads were commanded by Powell to go on a mission despite being…
Read MoreTony Saavedra and Teri Sforza of The Orange County Register report on internal travel records showing that executives of the Boy Scouts ran up a tab of over $27,000 at a four-day conference in Key West, Fla. held last January. The Orange County Boy Scouts chapter picked up most of the tab, although they were…
Read MorePaul Pringle of the Los Angeles Time reports that much of Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger’s travel is billed to “an obscure nonprofit group that can qualify its secret donors for full tax deductions.” Not only do watchdogs claim these write-offs are “abuse of tax codes,” but they also create a loophole to limits on campaign finance…
Read MoreThe Salt Lake Tribune‘s Jeremiah Stettler looked at the rise in use of Tasers by Utah’s police force and found that they are increasingly becoming the weapon of choice to subdue aggressive suspects. More than 4,200 Tasers have been distributed to officers in Utah’s law enforcement agencies. Anaylsis of 180 cases where Tasers were deployed,…
Read MoreWith the housing market on the decline and foreclosures on the rise, a scheme known as equity stripping is taking advantage of vulnerable homeowners, The New York Times’ Gretchen Morgenson and Vikas Bijaj report. Companies offer relief to those behind in their mortgage by offering “cash upfront, free monthly rent and a chance to retain…
Read MoreAnalysis of the CDC’s mortality data by Marshall Allen and Alex Richards of the Las Vegas Sun shows that residents of Nevada and Clark County “die younger and at higher rates of suicide, substance abuse and certain chronic illnesses compared with the rates nationally and in other large counties.” Sociologists and medical professionals seek to…
Read MoreSteven Schultze and Joel Dresang of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that, while the state doles out hundreds of millions in subsidies to Wisconsin businesses for job creation, it fails to track if the money actually makes a difference. The Journal Sentinel investigation shows that thousands of promised jobs are not getting filled. Schultze and…
Read MoreEric Longabardi, reporting for “The Enterprise Report” at ERSNews.com, reports on the “secret FAA airmen files” of Mohamed Atta, the lead pilot in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The files, posted on the site, and additional exclusive materials provide details about the extensive flight training that helped Atta earn a commercial pilot’s license in the…
Read MoreBeth Kormanik of The (Jacksonville, Fla.) Times-Union evaluated the daily calendars of city council members from June 1, 2005, to Dec. 1, 2006 and found dozens of meetings that violated Florida’s open meetings laws. “The computer-assisted analysis documented 307 scheduled meetings, excluding committee and full council meetings. Forty-seven calendar listings dealt with specific items of…
Read More