The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
Tamara Koehler of the Ventura County Star reports on the paper’s public records audit showing that 40 percent of county government agencies failed to comply with requests. “Ventura Unified School District employees feared for their lives when a young man walked into the office, asked for public records and refused to give his name.”
Read MoreReporters Steve Timko, Jason Hidalgo and Jim Sloan of the Reno Gazette-Journal examine rural emergency services in Nevada. Timko used data from the Department of Transportation’s Fatal Accident Reporting System to identify Nevada’s deadliest roads. Other stories in the series look at ambulance response times — finding they are the worst in the country &mdash…
Read MoreGeoff Dutton of The Columbus Dispatch continues to follow the predatory lending business and practices in Ohio. He finds that “leaders of the brokers association have urged lawmakers to reject new proposals designed to crack down on predatory lending and increase state oversight. The mortgage industry, they argue, can police itself without new state regulations.”…
Read MoreToxic dumping, public corruption investigations among winners Investigative stories about deceit in Cleveland’s public school district and an environmental disaster in New Jersey won the top prizes in the 2005 IRE awards, Investigative Reporters and Editors announced today. Those were among 15 prizes awarded by IRE. Other stories honored included a 17-year body of crime…
Read MoreJohn Hill of The Sacramento Bee found that the California Highway Patrol repeatedly shut down signature gathering at Department of Motor Vehicle offices across the state in response to the petition drive to recall Gov. Gray Davis in the spring of 2003. The move reversed a long-standing CHP practice of allowing local offices to routinely…
Read MoreMartha Mendoza and Christopher Sullivan of The Associated Press used federal records to show that the amount of unpaid federal fines has risen sharply in the past decade, in an investigation that examined federal financial penalty enforcement across the nation. Individuals and corporations regularly avoid large penalties for wrongdoing — sometimes through negotiations, sometimes because…
Read MoreCharles Forelle and James Bandler of The Wall Street Journal analyzed grant dates and stock movements and identified several companies with wildly improbable option-grant patterns. “The analysis bolsters recent academic work suggesting that backdating was widespread, particularly from the start of the tech-stock boom in the 1990s through the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform act of 2002.…
Read MoreAbraham Hyatt and Leslie Griffy of The Tribune in San Luis Obispo, Calif., found that cities throughout that county don’t follow state law when it comes to public records requests. “Only one of the county’s seven cities supplied both of the public documents that The Tribune sought. Reporters asked for a directory of city employees’…
Read MoreMonica Rhor of The Orange County Register surveyed all 58 California counties and found widespread discrepancies in how the state’s restraining order laws are being enforced. The system has become a legal labyrinth in which rules aren’t the same as reality, procedures differ from courthouse to courthouse, and violators often benefit more than victims. “Eleven…
Read MoreHerb Jackson of the North Jersey Media Group analyzed five years’ worth of contribution and spending reports to show that, of the nearly $9.4 million Sen. Robert Menendez spent, less than one-quarter — or $2.2 million — went for expenses that most voters would consider actual campaigning, such as advertising, yard signs and bumper stickers.…
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