Scot J. Paltrow, Unaccountable: The high cost of the Pentagon’s bad bookkeeping. Reuters, 23 December 2013. “Part 3, Broken Fixes: Why the Pentagon’s many campaigns to clean up its accounts are failing…. Time and again, programs to modernize Defense Department record-keeping have fallen prey to bureaucratic rivalry, resistance to change and a lack of consequences for failure.” (Part 1 of this three-part series was published on 2 July 2013, and Part 2 was published on 18 November 2013.)
Continue reading...December 21, 2013
Wells Fargo’s pressure-cooker sales culture comes at a cost
E. Scott Reckard, Wells Fargo’s pressure-cooker sales culture comes at a cost. Los Angeles Times, 21 December 2013. “Wells Fargo & Co. is the nation’s leader in selling add-on services to its customers. The giant San Francisco bank brags in earnings reports of its prowess in “cross-selling” financial products such as checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages and wealth management. In addition to generating fees and profits, those services keep customers tied to the bank and less likely to jump to competitors. But that success has come at a cost. The relentless pressure to sell has battered employee morale and led to ethical breaches, customer complaints and labor lawsuits, a [Los Angeles] Times investigation has found.”
Related:
James Rufus Koren, Wells Fargo to pay $185 million settlement for ‘outrageous’ sales culture. Los Angeles Times, 8 September 2016. “Calling it “outrageous” and “a major breach of trust,” local and federal regulators hammered Wells Fargo & Co. for a pervasive culture of aggressive sales goals that pushed thousands of workers to open as many as 2 million accounts that bank customers never wanted. Those practices, first uncovered by the Los Angeles Times in 2013, led to a massive $185-million settlement package announced Thursday [8 September 2016].
Pete Vernon, Q&A: Former LA Times reporter on story that led to $185 million Wells Fargo fine. Columbia Journalism Review, 12 September 2016.
Adam Davidson, How Regulation Failed With Wells Fargo. The New Yorker, 12 September 2016.
Continue reading...December 9, 2013
Invisible Child: Dasani and homeless children in NYC
Andrea Elliott, Invisible Child. The New York Times, five-part series, 9-13 December 2013. “There are more than 22,000 homeless children in New York, the highest number since the Great Depression. This is one of their stories.”
Continue reading...November 23, 2013
Two Gunshots On a Summer Night; A Death in St. Augustine
Walt Bogdanich and Glenn Silber, Two Gunshots On a Summer night. The New York Times, 23 November 2013,and FRONTLINE, 26 November 2013. “A Deputy’s Pistol, a Dead Girlfriend, a Flawed Inquiry.”
Continue reading...November 20, 2013
Looking Away From Genocide
Gary Bass, Looking Away From Genocide. The New Yorker, 20 November 2013. “On March 25, 1971, the Pakistani Army launched a devastating military crackdown on restive Bengalis in what was then East Pakistan. While the slaughter in what would soon become an independent Bangladesh was underway, the C.I.A and State Department conservatively estimated that roughly two hundred thousand people had died (the official Bangladeshi death toll is three million)…. Pakistan was a Cold War ally of the United States, and Richard Nixon and his national-security advisor, Henry Kissinger, resolutely supported its military dictatorship; they refused to impose pressure on Pakistan’s generals to forestall further atrocities.”
Continue reading...November 18, 2013
Unaccountable: The high cost of the Pentagon’s bad bookkeeping, Part 2
Scot J. Paltrow, Unaccountable: The high cost of the Pentagon’s bad bookkeeping. Reuters, 18 November 2013. “Part 2, Faking It: Behind the Pentagon’s doctored ledgers, a running tally of epic waste…. For two decades, the U.S. military has been unable to submit to an audit, flouting federal law and concealing waste and fraud totaling billions of dollars.” (Part 1 in this three-part series was published on 2 July 2013, and Part 3 was published on 23 December 2013.)
Continue reading...November 16, 2013
Deadly Delays At Hospitals Undermine Newborn Screening Programs
Ellen Gabler, Deadly Delays. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 16 November 2013. “The nation’s newborn screening programs depend on speed and science to save babies from rare diseases. But thousands of hospitals fall short, deadly delays are ignored and failures are hidden from public view — while babies and their families suffer.”
Winner of the 2014 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting.
Continue reading...November 6, 2013
The A-Team Killings
Matthieu Aikins, The A-Team Killings. Rolling Stone, 6 November 2013. “Last spring [2013], the remains of 10 missing Afghan villagers were dug up outside a U.S. Special Forces base–was it a war crime or just another episode in a very dirty war?”
Continue reading...October 29, 2013
Breathless and Burdened: Dying from black lung, buried by law and medicine
Chris Hamby, Breathless and Burdened. The Center for Public Integrity, three-part series, 29 October, 30 October, and 1 November 2013. “This yearlong investigation examines how doctors and lawyers, working at the behest of the coal industry, have helped defeat the benefits claims of miners sick and dying of black lung, even as disease rates are on the rise and an increasing number of miners are turning to a system that was supposed to help alleviate their suffering.” This series won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. One part of the three-part, 25,000-word series was produced in partnership with the ABC News Investigative Unit, whose work included an in-depth Nightline segment.” Updates from The Center for Public Integrity, 30 September 2015: “‘Sweeping reforms’ proposed for black lung benefit program” and “Johns Hopkins terminates black lung program.”
Winner of the 2014 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.
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