First Amendment & FOIA
Disney looks to improve parks to further growth
Jerry 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 MoreRestaurant inspections find high number of infractions
Lee 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 MoreRush hour trains running late
Rob 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…
Read MorePolice chases up in Nashville
Ian 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 MoreMedicare schemes may have cost taxpayers millions
Erin McCormick of the San Francisco Chronicle investigated Medicare scams dealing with elderly immigrants. What the Chronicle discovered were two scams: the first was a sleep clinic, which billed Medicare for tests that were over-billed and unnecessary. The second scam, the electronic wheelchair scam, dealt with Medicare recipients receiving free motorized scooters. In both scams…
Read MoreRadiologist’s long hours invoke suspicion
Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber of the Los Angeles Times used California’s Public Records Act to show that “Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center paid more than $1.3 million over the last year for the services of a radiologist who said he worked an average of 20 hours a day, seven days a week, during…
Read MoreFelony, not petty criminals fill jail
Karen E. Crummy of The Denver Post analyzed county data to find that “most of the inmates crammed into the Denver County Jail are accused of robbery, burglary, selling drugs and even violent assaults. Relatively few of them are the drunken drivers and petty drug users whom people often associate with county jail.” Local residents…
Read MoreParolees living in state nursing homes
Chris Fusco and Lori Rackl of the Chicago Sun-Times used state documents to show that sixty-one criminals on parole from the state’s prison system are living in 37 nursing homes alongside vulnerable people who have virtually no way of knowing they’re there. “The Sun-Times found an example of this in southwest suburban Bridgeview at Midway…
Read MoreCounty workers cashing in on overtime
Mickey Ciokajlo and Todd Lighty of the Chicago Tribune used Cook County payroll data to find that “more than 100 county workers were each paid $50,000 or more in overtime last year, with one industrious nurse pulling down $187,500 in extra pay. Oak Forest Hospital nurse Usha Patel, who earned the overtime on top of…
Read MoreCity officials spending with little oversight
Jim Davis of The Fresno Bee used city expense reports to show that “Fresno Mayor Alan Autry and the City Council spent tens of thousands of dollars in the past four years on meals, hotel bills and other expenses with little oversight and less public debate.” Autry had the city pay for 422 business meals…
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