Susanne Rust and Matt Drange, Toxic Trail: how a landmark cleanup program leaves its own toxic legacy. This story was a collaboration between The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) and The Guardian US, 17 March 2014. “The landmark Superfund program is supposed to clean up the country’s toxic waste. But as one site in Silicon Valley shows, it’s leaving behind its own legacy of environmental problems.”
Archives for March 2014
March 16, 2014
Innocents Lost: Preserving Families But Losing Children in Florida
Carol Marbin Miller and Audra D.S. Burch, Preserving Families But Losing Children. Miami Herald, 16 March 2014. 12-part series. “After Florida cut down on protections for children in troubled homes, deaths soared. The children died in ways cruel, outlandish, predictable and preventable…. A year-long Miami Herald investigation found that, in the last six years [2008-2013], 477 Florida children have died of abuse or neglect after their families had come to the attention of the Department of Children & Families…. To understand the magnitude of the problem — and possible solutions — the Herald studied every death over a six-year period involving families with child welfare histories. This series is the result of a year’s worth of reporting by the Herald’s Investigation Team, and multiple lawsuits to obtain state death records.” In February 2015 USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism announced that this series won the 2014 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, and in April 2015 the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University announced that this series won the 2014 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism.
March 9, 2014
The ‘Boys’ in the Bunkhouse
Dan Barry, The ‘Boys’ in the Bunkhouse. The New York Times, 9 March 2014. “Toil, abuse and endurance in the heartland…. For decades [1974-2009], dozens of men with intellectual disabilities belonged to a close-knit Iowa community. They lived in an old schoolhouse, worked in a turkey plant, and frequented the local mini-mart. But [few] knew just what these men endured.”
March 4, 2014
For teens at Rikers Island, solitary confinement pushes mental limits
Trey Bundy and Daffodil J. Altan, For teens at Rikers Island, solitary confinement pushes mental limits. The Center for Investigative Reporting, 4 March 2014. This story was produced in collaboration with Medium. “Because of its imposing size and notoriety, many people think Rikers is a prison, but it’s not. It’s a city jail, where on any given day about 85 percent of inmates await the resolution of their cases, according to the New York City Board of Correction. Most of the teenagers there are locked up because they can’t afford bail. In New York, anyone who is 16 or older is considered an adult under state criminal law. Rikers, one of the largest jails in the world, has an adolescent population that can rival the biggest adult jail systems in the country: between 400 and 800 a day.”