The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
Farah Stockman, Michael Kranish, and Peter S. Canellos of The Boston Globe, with Globe correspondent Kevin Baron, examined the complete database of USAID prime awards from 2001 to 2005, containing more than 52,000 funding actions, to reveal that USAID gave more than $1.7 billion to 159 “faith-based” organizations. The percentage of USAID funds to NGOs…
Read MoreIn response to the latest spate of school violence, reporters at The Philadelphia Inquirer decided to investigate the safey of local schools only to find that it lax. “In spite of rules aimed at limiting public access, reporters who fanned out on a single day walked into more than a dozen schools unannounced and without…
Read MoreDeborah L. Shelton and Jaimi Dowdell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used local data to revisit a topic the paper first examined five years ago: ambulance diversions from full hospitals.
Read MoreStudent reporter Sarah Rabil at The Daily Tar Heel analyzed state SAT rankings to take into consideration the impact of poverty and participation on these rankings. “An analysis by The Daily Tar Heel shows that the percentage of students taking the SAT in a given state dramatically affects a state’s average score. Poverty levels also…
Read MoreIn a two-part series Emily Ramshaw of The Dallas Morning News reports on the state of Texas’ sex offender registry, which is ladden with inaccuracy. Some experts blame an ever-increasing database without the manpower to maintain the information. “ The result? Vigilant parents and community groups are relying on faulty or incomplete data to protect…
Read MoreIn an extensive investigation into cotton farming and US subsidies, reporters Dan Chapman and Ken Foskett with CAR specialist Megan Clarke of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution take a look at the impact of this “multibillion-dollar entitlement” program on farming here and abroad. They also look at how “farmers game the system to evade subsidy limits, and…
Read MoreReporters from the Arizona Daily Star have put together an extensive investigation into the issues surrounding US-Mexico border security. Their multimedia investigations looks into the issues of why sealing off our borders will not work. “The Star sent a six-member reporting team on a three-week trek from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico…
Read MoreBert Dalmer of the Des Moines Register has written about a grant program in Polk County, Iowa that “smacks of vote-buying, according to one government watchdog group…The money - $1.5 million, given from the beginning of 2004 to the present — originates from gambling profits at Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino in Altoona.” Regulations controlling…
Read MoreA story by Robert Benincasa and Jennifer Brooks of the Gannett News Service shows that the best cardiac care is typically found in higher-income counties. “Using data provided by hospitals to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and covering the period of October 2004 through September 2005, GNS rated the nation’s hospitals on…
Read MoreA.C. Thompson of SF Weekly reports on a scandal within the San Franciso Police Department, “a cloak-and-dagger investigation that may have transgressed the department’s own rules - and definitely torched the careers of a pair of ethical police officers who dared to air their criticisms of the SFPD.” Following the 2003 leak of an internal…
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