Jailed defendants have a legal right to privately speak with their attorneys. Yet, in Maine, county jails are eavesdropping on these calls. Four jails recorded nearly 1,000 attorney-client calls in a single year and shared recordings with police and prosecutors before trial, a Maine Monitor investigation has found. Often defense lawyers are not told when […]
Updates
A Toxic Neighbor
A Superfund site in Grand Prairie, Texas, has been on the EPA’s national priority list since 2018. It’s located in the predominantly Latino and low-income neighborhood of Burbank Gardens. EPA tests found a highly toxic chemical in the soil at the site, in nearby groundwater and in the air inside some residents’ homes. Now, EPA […]
Unguarded
The BDN’s three-part series, “Unguarded,” tells the stories of soldiers sexually assaulted and harassed within the ranks of the Maine Army National Guard while lax enforcement of policies, little oversight, and retaliation against those who complained continued for more than a decade. The six-month investigation is built on state, federal, military, police and civilian court […]
Local investigative projects underway
Published 12/01/2020 | Updated 3/22/2021 Investigative Editing Corps editors are working with six local news organizations from North Carolina to California examining issues arising from the COVID-19 pandemic Five projects have begun publishing installments of the ongoing investigations. These are among the six funded by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. There will be two additional […]
Report for America, Investigative Editing Corps launch pilot project
Published 9/17/2020 | Updated 3/22/2021 Report for America has joined forces with Investigative Editing Corps to pilot a program that will pair experienced editors with emerging journalists to do investigative and watchdog reporting for local newsrooms. “Newsrooms across the country tell us that the lack of editors is just as bad as the lack of reporters,” said Kim […]
Investigative Editing Corps pivots to in-depth COVID-19 reporting
Published 4/23/2020 | Updated 3/22/2021 Covid-19 has uniquely become a once-in-a-lifetime international and local story. Local newsrooms across the country face an overwhelming crush of breaking news as well as a commitment to dig behind the headlines to describe for their readers the impact this health crisis is having on their communities. To that end, […]
Public Housing in Private Hands
With the pandemic raging, San Francisco Public Press and Nina Sparling focused on the most vulnerable renters in the nation’s most expensive housing markets, people living in subsidized housing. Her stories focus on their risk of eviction and displacement. In a continuing investigation, Sparling’s reporting has revealed that city officials have known for years about poor […]
Past Due
Just before the pandemic hit, The Blade started looking at its local public housing authority as it shuttered its waiting list for those in need of housing. Where would lower-income individuals go to live? With the help of editor Deborah Nelson and data editor Sean Mussenden, Blade reporters dug deeper into housing data to find the Toledo […]
Education Under Siege
The Lewiston Sun Journal took on the impact of generational poverty made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. Maine school systems with high poverty rates have long wrestled with student achievement. Editor Jennifer LaFleur worked with Reporter Lindsay Tice to detail what such inequities mean for schools and families, uncovering computer shortages, no broadband and lost […]
Ignored and Forgotten
Each hurricane season, eastern North Carolina braces for the worst. But emergency planning, response and recovery efforts neglect a major marginalized population: rural Latinos. Without emergency alerts in their language or recovery support specific to community needs, immigrant workers and families navigate an emergency management system that fails to include them, putting their jobs and […]