The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
Dave Altimari of The Hartford Courant used documents released under a federal lawsuit by the paper to show that Connecticut’s “judicial branch began an organized effort in the 1990s to hide the existence of some lawsuits involving the rich and famous, years before court officials claimed those so-called super-sealed cases were merely the results of…
Read MoreR. Jeffrey Smith and Derek Willis from The Washington Post analyzed federal campaign expenditure records to find that top congressional leaders “flew on corporate-owned jets at least 360 times from January 2001 to December 2004.” Members of both parties took part in the practice, although leading Republicans flew more often than Democrats. “The records show…
Read MoreDejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette spent two months delving into the finances of the Pittsburgh Pirates, owned by a private company, to project “that the Pirates will make a $12.8 million profit in 2005.” The average Major League Baseball franchise generated about $4.4 million in profits last year, and the Pirates’ payroll has been…
Read MoreMary B. Pasciak and Andrew Bailey of The Buffalo News analyzed fourth-grade standardized test scores from the area to find that “top performing schools – those that get the most from their students regardless of family income – often are the ones teaching students who have the least … These top schools didn’t necessarily have…
Read MoreSusan Vinella of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reviewed spending records from Ohio’s largest Head Start agency to find “executives and board members spending tens of thousands on meals, trips and gifts. Many of the expenses were paid with government money that the Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland receives for its annual budget, which…
Read MoreCarolyn Tuft of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used Missouri’s Open Records law to obtain documents showing that “TV evangelist Joyce Meyer and her family have received millions in salary and benefits from her worldwide ministry in recent years.” The details were included in a property tax dispute involving the tax status of the ministry’s headquarters.…
Read MoreLee Davidson of The Deseret Morning News uses computer assisted-reporting to analyze nearly 10,000 restaurant inspections during 2003 and 2004. The data were obtained through a state open records request. “The analysis shows which restaurants had the most violations per inspection and the fewest, with 25 establishments averaging 13 or more critical violations per inspection,…
Read MoreJerry W. Jackson, Debbie Salamone and Sean Mussenden of The Orlando Sentinel used public records to determine that Walt Disney World represents a more than $4 billion-a-year business in Central Florida. The paper reviewed state, local and county tax records, corporate annual reports and 15 years’ worth of federal SEC filings, using computer-assisted reporting, to…
Read MoreIan Demsky of The (Nashville) Tennessean used local police data to show that “a record number of police pursuits zipped through Nashville streets last year, even as beefed-up safety measures caused officers to cancel more of the dangerous car chases than ever before.” A third of the 269 police chases in 2004 led to some…
Read MoreRob Gebeloff and Joe Malinconico of The (Newark) Star-Ledger analyzed state data to find that while New Jersey Transit’s overall on-time performance is close to 95 percent, “on-time rates for dozens of rush-hour trains are twice as bad as the overall average.” The paper’s analysis also showed that “on the Northeast Corridor, one of every…
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