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Posts Tagged ‘Behind the Story’
Behind the Story: How KATC exposed problems with early animal euthanasia in Louisiana
Video by KATC-Lafayette You don’t need to work in a large newsroom to pull off an investigative story with impact. Earlier this year KATC-Lafayette’s Tina Macias and Allison Bourne-Vanneck revealed that in 2013 a Louisiana animal shelter euthanized a quarter of the dogs that passed through its doors in less than four days – the…
Read MoreBehind the Story: How KSHB-Kansas City uncovered a trail of dirty deeds
Video by Ryan Kath and John Woods, KSHB KSHB-Kansas City’s year-long investigation into a widespread real estate fraud scheme started simple – with a tip from an observant neighbor. But when reporter Ryan Kath started looking into the housing documents, he spotted a bigger problem. Someone had been stealing homes by forging signature of both the living…
Read MoreBehind the Story: The Desert Sun’s investigation into off-duty Marine deaths
Brett Kelman | The Desert Sun In 2011, three car crashes caught the attention of Greg Burton, executive editor of The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, California. The first involved a 100 mile-per-hour road race that led to a deadly wreck at a park. The other two also ended with fatalities. All three involved Marines. The news…
Read MoreBehind the Story: How KDNK investigated gas spills on private property
Photo courtesy of KDNK Oil and gas companies reported about 90 spills last year in heavily-drilled Garfield County, Colorado. Many of the leaks happened on private properties leased to drilling companies, said Ed Williams, a reporter at community radio station KDNK. But when unsafe levels of dangerous chemicals like arsenic and benzene contaminated the land,…
Read MoreDo universities play a role in student suicides?
By Nikhila Henry, The Times of India Photo from the The Struggle Committee for Justice for Mudasir Kamran Facebook page Can the dead talk? In rare cases they do. Mudassir Kamran, a 25-year-old Kashmiri student hanged himself in a single bed hostel room at English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad, India on March 2, 2013.…
Read MoreBehind the Story: The Indianapolis Star’s probe into the billion-dollar deer farming industry
Ryan Sabalow It’s like a gold rush. There’s money to be made, but the cost of those riches is a host of harmful, unintended consequences. A recent Indianapolis Star investigation uncovered evidence linking lucrative deer farming operations to the spread of invasive lice and diseases such as bovine tuberculosis and chronic wasting disease in wild…
Read MoreBehind the Story: How USA TODAY pieced together a confidential FBI database to count fugitives who go free
Brad Heath Lamont Pride was a wanted man the day he fatally shot a New York City police officer during a 2011 robbery. Officials had already passed up opportunities to lock up Pride, who was wanted in connection with a North Carolina shooting. And when the fugitive appeared in a Brooklyn court on a drug…
Read MoreBehind the Story: How the Chicago Sun-Times helped bring a nephew of Mayor Richard M. Daley to justice in a 10-year-old homicide
By Paul Saltzman, Chicago Sun-Times On Jan. 31, 2014, a nephew of former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in a death a decade earlier. Richard J. “R.J.” Vanecko admitted doing exactly what an investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times had revealed in early 2011 he did — and what police and…
Read MoreBehind the Story: How the Los Angeles Times turned an anonymous tip into a front-page story
Paige St. John No such records exist. That’s the message Paige St. John received when she requested audit records on the Los Angeles County Probation Department’s GPS monitoring program. Despite the rocky start, the Los Angeles Times reporter went on to break the story about trivial alerts from GPS monitors overwhelming probation officers in LA…
Read MoreUsing new nonprofit law center, Hawaii’s Civil Beat wins access to police misconduct records
In the flood of paperwork that made its way each year to the Hawaii legislature, a shocking statistic slipped under the radar: About once a week the Honolulu Police Department was suspending or firing an officer for misconduct. Often the offenses were serious – abusing suspects, lying to federal investigators, tipping off drug dealers. And…
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