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IRE Awards deadline approaches: Jan. 9
IRE reminds Extra! Extra! readers that the postmark deadline for entering the IRE Awards is fast approaching — Jan. 9, 2006. The IRE Awards recognize the best investigative reporting across print, broadcast and online categories. Don’t let your best work go unnoticed! With recent newsroom cost-cutting efforts, it’s best not to count on someone else…
Read MoreGulf Coast homeowner loans lagging
Leslie Eaton and Ron Nixon of The New York Times used federal data to show the pace of homeowner loans in the Gulf Coast is lagging. “The Small Business Administration, which runs the federal government’s main disaster recovery program for both businesses and homeowners, has processed only a third of the 276,000 home loan applications…
Read MoreBonus costing county millions
Ron Fonger of The Flint Journal used Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act to show that Genessee County employees who qualify for additional pay based on length of service “cost county taxpayers $1.89 million” in the past fiscal year. “That’s extra pay on top of negotiated across-the-board raises or individual ’step’ raises that also come with…
Read MoreMultifamily housing hit hardest by Wilma
Brittany Wallman and Jeremy Milarsky of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel analyzed hurricane damage reports to show that in Broward County, “condos and apartments were hit the hardest, accounting for 55 percent of the buildings declared uninhabitable. Mobile homes made up 28 percent of seriously damaged structures. Houses fared the best. Only 42 were deemed uninhabitable,…
Read MoreChildren die in spite of Okla. abuse reports
Ziva Branstetter, Curtis Killman, Nicole Marshall, Omer Gillham and Ginnie Graham of the Tulsa World report in a three-part series on Oklahoma’s failure to save at least 30 children who died from abuse and neglect in the past five years. The series detailed cases in which the Oklahoma Department of Human Services had prior reports…
Read MoreTaxpayer money used to defend city official
David Josar of The Detroit News used records obtained under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act to find that “Detroit City Clerk Jackie Currie has spent more than $100,000 in taxpayer funds on a team of private lawyers and advisers to defend her in a lawsuit that accuses her of mismanagement and fraud in the handling…
Read MoreSecrecy hides those who prey on children
Andrew Wolfson of The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal reports that “Kentucky shrouds its juvenile courts behind some of the strictest secrecy laws in the nation, requiring the public to accept on faith that it is being protected from dangerous children — and that innocent children are being protected from dangerous adults.”
Read MoreMayor withholds crime stats
The mayor of Jackson, Miss., has refused to release the city’s crime statistics to the City Council. “Under the prior administration of Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr., the crime statistics were released to media and published every Monday in The Clarion-Ledger‘s metro-state section.”
Read MoreManhattan homeowners pay lower taxes
Josh Barbanel of The New York Times used local tax and real estate data to show that “average taxes on Manhattan co-ops and condos are lower than they would be if they were taxed the way some of the most heavily taxed houses are. But it is prewar co-ops that have the greatest tax advantage.”…
Read MoreKillers buried among military heroes
Richard Lardner and Doug Stanley of The Tampa Tribune report at least 50 veterans who committed homicides in civilian life are interred at Florida National Cemetery, “the final resting place for tens of thousands of military veterans,” according to the paper’s analysis of cemetery and prison records. The paper reports Congress is expected to pass…
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