NewsBusiness, Environment In the Shadow of BP, Small Spills Abound As we highlighted last week, the federal government and news organizations have responded to the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico with a flurry of hearings, reports, and investigations… Nicholas KusnetzMay 14, 2010
InvestigationBusiness, Politics When Whistle-blowers Fight Back During the boom, banks didn’t want to hear they were being ripped off. One internal fraud investigator, BB&T’s Amy Stroupe, paid a high price. (Read part 1 of this 2-part series here.) Michael W. HudsonThe Big MoneyMay 13, 2010
AnalysisPolitics Right-Wing Think Tanks Discover “Investigative Reporting” There’s a fascinating story in the new Washington Monthly by Laura McGann about the new wave of highly partisan “investigative reporting” on the right. Sometimes, as she points out, these efforts produce strong, legitimate muckraking work… Esther KaplanMay 12, 2010
ImpactJournalism Honors For IFUND Reporter and Photograper Anna Lenzer’s fall 2009 Mother Jones cover story, “Spin the Bottle,” which made waves across the globe when it was published, has won the 2010 Maggie Award… Jayati VoraMay 10, 2010
InvestigationBusiness Silencing the Whistleblowers In-house fraud investigators at some of the nation’s biggest banks and lenders go on the record about how these institutions failed to police themselves in the lead-up to the subprime crisis. (Read part 2 of this series here.) Michael W. HudsonThe Big MoneyMay 10, 2010
AnalysisWorld Worldfocus Has Shut Its Doors A year ago, the nightly public television news program Worldfocus landed a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for its report “War in DR Congo.” It scored two Emmy nominations… Brian PalmerMay 6, 2010
InvestigationPolitics Counting on the Census A close look at the race gap in the census, which means large numbers of African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans aren’t counted when budgets and political districts are set. Kai WrightThe NationMay 6, 2010
InvestigationJustice Taser Timeout Taser abuse is rampant at the Jerome Combs Detention Center, an hour south of Chicago. More than 100 inmates were shocked by Tasers over a 28-month period, even though a quarter of the inmates were restrained at the time. Kelly VirellaThe Chicago ReporterMay 5, 2010
InvestigationImmigration, Labor Bound for America Enticed by unscrupulous recruiters, saddled with thousands of dollars of debt, and working in exploitive, often abusive conditions, guest workers in the United States are legal — but vulnerable to a modern form of indentured servitude. John BoweMother JonesMay 5, 2010
AnalysisWorld World Press Freedom Day “Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last,” wrote Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickramatunga in an editorial published three days after his death. Chantal FloresMay 3, 2010