Search results for: disability
IRE Radio Podcast | Hazardous Health Care
It’s not easy prying information out of hospitals and health departments. On our podcast this week we’ll hear from journalists who successfully negotiated for the data or documents they needed to fuel an investigation. Here’s the lineup: Gary Dotson of the Belleville News-Democrat shares the paper’s 2012 story about the state’s failure to investigate after…
Read More$163 million spent on injured public safety employees in three New York counties
Police officers and firefighters who file injury claims in the Lower Hudson Valley often collect tax-free salaries for years while local municipalities and the state wrangle over who ultimately picks up the tab. More than 15 percent of the state’s first responders end up retiring on a state-funded disability pension. That number is even higher…
Read MoreExtra Extra Monday: Child deaths, drug-addicted babies, veterans center doctors, broken FOI laws
Miami Herald Innocents Lost | The Miami Herald Fraternal twins Tariji and Tavont’ae Gordon joined a sad procession of children who died, often violently, after the Florida Department of Children & Families had been warned, often repeatedly, that they or their siblings could be in danger. The children were not just casualties of bad parenting,…
Read MoreExtra Extra Monday: Hospital ‘trauma’ charges, police and fire overtime, toxic chemical danger zones
Image from Newseum Insult to injury | Tampa Bay Times Trauma patients, who have no choice in where the ambulance takes them, are being charged as much as $33,000 the moment they enter a Florida trauma center. That money doesn’t account for X-rays or treatment; it’s just a cover charge, and thousands of patients have…
Read MoreBehind the Story: The Boston Globe’s 4-year battle for secret settlement records
Boston Globe reporter Todd Wallack thought it would be a simple, short-term project to look into settlements made between the state of Massachusetts and some of its employees. After all, he’d done the same thing in California, uncovering an agreement between UC Davis and one of its administrators to avert a nasty lawsuit. But the…
Read MoreFor special education students, diplomas, jobs increasingly elusive
Mississippi is one of three states where more students with a learning disability graduate with an alternate diploma than a regular one. That poses a serious problem for many students leaving the state’s special education programs. According to the Hechinger Report, many colleges and employers don’t recognize the alternative diplomas. “As a result, thousands of…
Read MoreVA support coming too late to veterans
“The VA’s inability to pay benefits to veterans before they die is increasingly common, according to data obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting.” “The data reveals, for the first time, that long wait times are contributing to tens of thousands of veterans being approved for disability benefits and pensions only after it is too…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Investigating lost war records
In 2011, reporter Peter Sleeth was working on a historical account of a battle he had witnessed during his time as an embedded reporter in Iraq. His work on the piece stalled while researching Sgt. Jacob Butler, a soldier who had died in battle at As Samawah, Iraq in 2003. No one in the Army…
Read MoreWith one week left before Philip Meyer deadline, a look at past winners
There is only one more week until the Nov. 2 postmark deadline for the Philip Meyer contest, and we want to see your work. The Philip Meyer Journalism Award recognizes stories that incorporate survey research, probabilities and other social science tools in creative ways that lead to journalism vital to the community. Established in 2005,…
Read MoreIt’s all about location for disabled vets in limbo
A Bay Citizen investigation has found that “veterans waiting for decisions on their disability claims wait longer than the Department of Veterans Affairs has acknowledged, especially if they come from larger urban areas. Solutions tried in four locations have not helped so far, as the backlog continues to grow.”
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