Neela Banerjee, Exxon’s Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers in the 1970s, Too. InsideClimate News, 22 December 2015. “The American Petroleum Institute together with the nation’s largest oil companies ran a task force to monitor and share climate research between 1979 and 1983, indicating that the oil industry, not just Exxon alone, was aware of its possible impact on the world’s climate far earlier than previously known.”
Continue reading...December 18, 2015
Investigation: [Fatal] Police Shootings in the US in 2015
The Washington Post, Investigation: [Fatal] Police Shootings [in 2015 in the US] The database is updated regularly. 2015. About this story: “How The Washington Post is examining police shootings in the U.S.” 30 June 2015. “The Washington Post is compiling a database of every fatal shooting in the United States by a police officer in the line of duty in 2015.”
Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.
Winner of the 2015 George Polk Award for National Reporting.
Continue reading...December 17, 2015
Reimagining Journalism: The Story of the One Percent
Michael Massing, Reimagining Journalism: The Story of the One Percent. The New York Review of Books, 17 December 2015. “Inequality, the concentration of wealth, the one percent, the new Gilded Age—all became fixtures of national debate thanks in part to the [Occupy Wall Street] protesters who camped out in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan [in 2011]. Even the Republican presidential candidates have felt compelled to address the matter [in 2015 and 2016]. News organizations, meanwhile, have produced regular reports on the fortunes of the wealthy, the struggles of the middle class, and the travails of those left behind. Even amid the outpouring of coverage of rising income inequality, however, the richest Americans have remained largely hidden from view.” This is the first of two articles. The second is How to Cover the One Percent, published in The New York Review of Books on 14 January 2016.
Continue reading...December 16, 2015
An Unbelievable Story of Rape
Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller, An Unbelievable Story of Rape. The Marshall Project (Ken Armstrong) and ProPublica (T. Christian Miller), 16 December 2015. “An 18-year-old said she was attacked at knifepoint. Then she said she made it up. That’s where our story begins.” “‘An Unbelievable Story of Rape’ is the account of a failed police investigation and the trail of hurt and humiliation that followed. This 12,000-word piece tells the story of a young woman who reported being raped at knifepoint in her apartment, only to be disbelieved by police, and later prosecuted for lying to the authorities. Years later, two relentless female detectives in Colorado arrested a man suspected of raping a series of women and discovered that the original victim was telling the truth all along.”
Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting.
Winner of the 2015 George Polk Award for Justice Reporting.
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December 7, 2015
Trafficking in Terror: How closely entwined are the drug trade and global terrorism?
Ginger Thompson, Trafficking in Terror: How closely entwined are the drug trade and global terrorism? The New Yorker, 7 December 2015. This piece is a collaboration between The New Yorker and ProPublia. “The DEA warns that drugs are funding terror. An examination of cases raises questions about whether the agency is stopping threats or staging them.”
Joe Posner, How the DEA invented “narco-terrorism.” Vox video, 7 December 2015.
Continue reading...November 11, 2015
Not So Securus: Massive Hack of 70 Million Prisoner Phone Calls Indicates Violations of Attorney-Client Privilege
Jordan Smith and Micah Lee, Not So Securus: Massive Hack of 70 Million Prisoner Phone Calls Indicates Violations of Attorney-Client Privilege. The Intercept, 11 November 2015. “An enormous cache of phone records obtained by The Intercept reveals a major breach of security at Securus Technologies, a leading provider of phone services inside the nation’s prisons and jails. The materials — leaked via SecureDrop by an anonymous hacker who believes that Securus is violating the constitutional rights of inmates — comprise over 70 million records of phone calls, placed by prisoners to at least 37 states, in addition to links to downloadable recordings of the calls. The calls span a nearly two-and-a-half year period, beginning in December 2011 and ending in the spring of 2014.”
Continue reading...October 31, 2015
Beware the Fine Print (of arbitration clauses in contracts)
Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Robert Gebeloff, Beware the Fine Print: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice. The New York Times, 31 October 2015. Part I of a three-part series on arbitration clauses in contracts. Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Michael Corkery, Beware the Fine Print: In Arbitration, a ‘Privatization of the Justice System.’ The New York Times, 1 November 2015. Part II of this three-part series on arbitration clauses in contracts. Michael Corkery and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Beware the Fine Print: In Religious Arbitration, Scripture Is the Rule of Law. The New York Times, 2 November 2015. Part III of this three-part series on arbitration clauses in contracts. This three-part series examines “how clauses buried in tens of millions of contracts have deprived Americans of one of their most fundamental constitutional rights: their day in court.”
Winner of the 2015 George Polk Award for Legal Reporting.
Continue reading...October 30, 2015
‘Redlining’ Home Loan Discrimination Re-emerges as a Concern for Regulators
Rachel L. Swarns, ‘Redlining’ Home Loan Discrimination Re-emerges as a Concern for Regulators. The New York Times, 30 October 2015. “In 2014, Hudson [City Savings Bank] approved 1,886 mortgages in the market that includes New Jersey and sections of New York and Connecticut, federal mortgage data show. Only 25 of those loans went to black borrowers.”
Continue reading...October 26, 2015
Lives on the Line: The Human Cost of Cheap Chicken
Oxfam Research Report, Lives on the Line: The Human Cost of Cheap Chicken. Oxfam America, 26 October 2015. “Chicken is the most popular meat in America , and the poultry industry is booming. Profits are climbing, consumer demand is growing, and executive compensation is increasing rapidly. But one element remains trapped at the bottom: the workers on the poultry processing line. Poultry workers 1) earn low wages of diminishing value, 2) suffer elevated rates of injury and illness, and 3) often experience a climate of fear in the workplace. These problems affect the entire industry, but the top four chicken companies control roughly 60 percent of the domestic market: Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s, Perdue, and Sanderson Farms. As industry leaders, these companies can and should implement changes that will improve conditions for poultry workers across the country.
The full report explores industry history and trends in consumption, documents the realities and challenges of life working on the line, and offers concrete recommendations to improve conditions.”
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