The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
Ron Campbell of the Orange County Register reports on Irvine businessman Mark Ellis who made millions of dollars through his money-losing penny stock company, Winsted Holdings. By reverse-splitting the stock and then flooding the market with billions of new shares, he effectively drove down the stock’s price to a hundredth of a penny.The story explores…
Read MoreDebbie Cenziper of The Miami Herald reports that one of Miami’s leading political and civic figures, Raul Masvidal, was arrested on fraud and grand theft charges. The arrest is the result of an investigation prompted by The Herald‘s “House of Lies” series that exposed rampant corruption in the Miami-Date Housing Agency. Masvidal is one of…
Read MoreReporters Cary Spivak and Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel disclosed that a top official in Gov. Jim Doyle
Read MoreKen Dilanian of The Philadelphia Inquirer found a long list of health and safety violations, a history of substandard care, and a system of state oversight that, until recently, often allowed deficient operators to violate safety rules with virtual impunity in the assisted-living homes of Philadelphia. Since 2000, at least 55 assisted-living residents have died…
Read MoreReforms promised after the story reveals that man under Milwaukee County’s care was dead for days before his body was discovered. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Meg Kissinger continues her year-long coverage of housing conditions for Milwakee’s impoverished mentally ill. The latest story details how a man had been dead for up to four days before…
Read MoreBrandon Ortiz of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader analyzed court records to show that Kentucky’s judicial retirement system will pay out at least $1.57 million this year to compensate retired judges who work part-time to ease court backlogs. That’s far more than the $420,000 agreed to seven years ago. “That revelation raises questions about whether the…
Read MoreChris Halsne of KIRO-Seattle used a computer analysis to locate more than 900 known child rapists and molesters living inside “school protection zones.” Using mapping software, KIRO Team 7 Investigators plotted addresses of every school and every registered sex offender convicted of violating a child. Despite the fact that last June, state lawmakers ruled that…
Read MoreA report by Richard Lardner of the Tampa Tribune indicates that “civilian casualties in Iraq’s volatile Anbar province would have been greatly reduced over the past 20 months if an inexpensive, hand-held laser system had been sent to the Marines operating there, according to a series of e-mail messages between troops in the field and…
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