Posts Tagged ‘Behind the Story’
Behind the Story: The San Diego port, altered public records and interactive presentation
San Diego’s Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal is home to a rare deep water port that’s valuable to the maritime industry, but for the last ten years, developers have argued that the area should be transformed into an entertainment district. When two businessmen responsible for running the U-T San Diego began promoting the stadium, Brooke Williams…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Investigating a building collapse, creating an interactive timeline
A normal day on the local government beat became two months of investigating for Lansing State Journal reporter Lindsay VanHulle. After a portion of the residential St. Anne Lofts building collapsed in East Lansing, Mich., VanHulle discovered problems in the city’s building code and development programs. Prior to the building’s collapse, these problems allowed unpermitted…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Using tips from sources, data and documents to uncover inflated hospital prices
On Thursday, The Charlotte Observer and the News & Observer in Raleigh won bronze in the Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism, funded by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, for their series “Prognosis: Profits,” in which the reporters dissected the finances of large healthcare institutions and discovered inflated prices, lawsuits against thousands…
Read MoreBehind the Story: The cost of sugar supports
In a recent piece for the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, Amy Green reports on the cost of sugar supports to American taxpayers. She is currently working on a book about the Florida Everglades, which will explore political and environmental impacts on the area.When Amy Green, a native Floridian, thinks of the Florida Everglades, she…
Read MoreBehind the Story: How the marketing of Oxycontin trumped science
For more than a year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has been investigating prescription drugs and the dangerous side effects of using opioids ot treat chronic pain. The latest installment of the series tracks the lives of chronic pain sufferers who praised the drug in a 1998 promotional video. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters John Fauber and…
Read MoreBehind The Story: Mother Jones and the 47 percent
Mother Jones magazine shook up the presidential campaign on Monday when it released a video it obtained of Republican candidate Mitt Romney speaking at a private fundraiser. The video included the following comment from Romney, which many have taken issue with: “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no…
Read MoreBehind the Story: The benefits of sticking with a story
Photo credit:WUSA 9 It’s hard to keep saying everything is fine when documents prove otherwise. Although the General Services Administration continually denied knowledge of a “death list,” investigative reporter Russ Ptacek discovered the list while working for Kansas City’s KSHB-TV. He continued the investigation at WUSA 9, in Washington, D.C. A GSA employee created the “death list” to…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Disproportionate lending by race discovered with data
Photo credit:Joanne Lawton/Washington Business Journal It’s one thing to say African American entrepreneurs are recovering from the economic downturn slower than white entrepreneurs, it’s another to explain why. That’s what Washington Business Journal reporter Bryant Switzky did using a database from the Small Business Administration and other datasets related to the Community Reinvestment Act. “The…
Read MoreGhost Factories: Behind the Story and Interactive
By Anthony DeBarros USA TODAY In April, after USA TODAY published its Ghost Factories investigation into forgotten lead smelters, we heard from several people who wanted to know more about how the project came together — particularly the online package that included details on more than 230 of the former factories. The following is an…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Multiple government websites help journalists get around FOIA requests
Not having access to the list of firms disqualified from the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business program didn’t stop Dayton Daily News reporters from determining which companies were debarred from government contracts or from identifying some of the companies under investigation or disqualified from the program. The article, “’Rent-a-vet’ scam proves costly to taxpayers, businesses,” gives…
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