The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
Patrick Lakamp of The Buffalo News analyzed 24,000 parking ticket hearings, finding that most Buffalo residents pay the majority of their fines, whereas as a select few city insiders get their fines dismissed. “They just write letters to the city’s parking enforcement director. Two-thirds of the time, their tickets go away.” A deputy commissioner of…
Read MoreErin Jordan of the Des Moines Register obtained salary records of foundation employees at Iowa’s three public universities. They found on average the employees made less than the national average, but the administrators were far above the average salary with “… U of I Foundation President Michael New topping out at $250,000 a year.” Despite…
Read MoreDan Tracy of the Orlando Sentinel spent more than six months investigating the Orange County Convention Center and the industry surrounding Central Florida’s largest single public-works project. “The center’s $748 million expansion, which opened in August 2003 in the midst of a tourism and travel slump, attracted only 154,317 new visitors during its first full…
Read MoreDavid E. Kaplan of U.S. News & World Reports details how the White House is implementing a secret policy to intervene not just in the Muslim world, but within Islam itself, and how Washington has set up a program of political warfare unmatched since the height of the Cold War forty years ago. The project…
Read MoreJoseph Tanfani, Tom Infield, Carrie Budoff and Edward Colimore of The Philadelphia Inquirer studied the availability of armor for military vehicles in Iraq, finding a shortage “had more to do with Pentagon missteps than any lack of industrial capacity.” The importance of vehicle armor is highlighted in casualties: “Since May 1, 2003, when the United…
Read MoreCheryl W. Thompson of The Washington Post studied medical board records from the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, finding that “scores of physicians in the area and across the country have been given repeated chances to practice, despite well-documented drug and alcohol problems.” In addition, sanctions in such cases can take months or years…
Read MoreLarry Margasak and Sharon Theimer of the Associated Press reviewed federal campaign filings to find that “dozens of lawmakers have hired their spouses and children to work for their campaigns and political groups, paying them with contributions they’ve collected from special interests and other donors.” The AP identified about 50 House members who pay their…
Read MoreCNN investigative correspondent Drew Griffin reports on police officers who use steriods. Griffin reports this is a growing problem across the country as police feel they need to bulk up to gain an advantage over criminals. In an interview with Al Geoit, a former officer in rural Michigan who was fired for poor job performance,…
Read MoreBrian Meyer of The Buffalo News used city records to show that “the agency that runs public housing in Buffalo set aside nearly $124,000 last July for trips, credit card spending, cell phones, insurance and stipends for its seven volunteer commissioners for this fiscal year. … This is the same Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority that…
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