New rules still don't cover immigrants
Posted: May 18, 2012 | Tags: immigration
A zero-tolerance policy and a set of new rules to protect against sexual assault and rape in prisons nationwide were announced Thursday by the Justice Department. The new rules come nearly a decade after Congress mandated new rape protections for those behind bars under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) of 2003. But the new regulations won't immediately impact the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration detention centers, as it still has 120 days to write its own rules to comply with PREA and another 240 days to finalize them.
The Investigative Reporting Workshop and PBS FRONTLINE documented ...
Knight moves to support donor transparency
Posted: April 16, 2012 | Tags: Transparency
Nonprofit entrepreneurs are always a little reluctant to comment on the policies and practices of philanthropic foundations, for obvious reasons. If we are too critical or sometimes even a little bit critical, there is a very real risk of our funding drying up. And if we are complimentary, we run the embarrassing risk of appearing to be unctuous and obsequious, resembling Eddie Haskell on the old TV show "Leave it to Beaver."
But nonetheless, and stepping gingerly here, I commend the Knight Foundation for its new policy announced yesterday, requiring journalism and media grantees to disclose the identities and amounts ...
'Honor and privilege' to work with Mike Wallace
Posted: April 9, 2012 | Tags: 60 Minutes, Charles Lewis, Investigating Power, Mike Wallace
On Saturday, April 7, 2012, one of the most extraordinary broadcast journalists in American history died at the age of 93. Mike Wallace piqued those in power for more than half a century, nowhere more famously than on the CBS News program "60 Minutes," between 1968 and 2008.
I first met Mike in 1984, when he called me out of the blue one day and asked if I had any interest in working for "60 Minutes." I had been an off-air investigative reporter at ABC News in Washington for more than six years, and I was restless. Within weeks, I ...
NICAR Conference: Focus on products, tools, utilities
Posted: Feb. 27, 2012 | Tags: Investigative Reporters and Editors, Matt Waite, National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting
Last year, after the annual National Institute of Computer Assisted Reporting conference, I suggested that a new group of “journalysts” is transforming the practice of journalism. Many of them come, at least indirectly, from training or experience in computer science.
Last week, when NICARIANs gathered again in St. Louis, yet another iteration of the field was on display: A new focus on products and tools, even if they aren’t directly related to the “journalism” of a news organization.
One clear example of this was a presentation by Ryan Pitts, manager of online operations at the Spokane, Wash., Spokesman-Review, who ...
Who will fix your planes?
Posted: Feb. 2, 2012 | Tags: airline maintenance
American Airlines’ parent company, AMR Corp., yesterday outlined its plan to cut about 13,000 jobs — or 16 percent of its workforce — as part of a restructuring plan following its November bankruptcy filing. The company says it wants to reduce employee costs by 20 percent.
The cuts will affect all types of employees, from pilots to flight attendants. A key sector that’s set to lose about 4,600 jobs is maintenance — the people who fix your planes. One facility at Alliance Airport in Fort Worth will be shut down entirely, leaving 1,200 mechanics out of work.
Until the ...
Tennessee bank collapse largest since April 2010
Posted: Jan. 30, 2012 | Tags: banks, BankTracker, failed banks, FDIC, TARP
Friday’s failure of the Tennessee Commerce Bank of Franklin, Tenn., is the costliest bank collapse since April 30, 2010, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
The FDIC estimated that closing the Tennessee bank would cost the deposit insurance fund $416.8 million. That would mean it cost more than any of the 92 banks that failed in 2011 or the 93 that were closed between April 30 and Dec. 31, 2010.
On April 30, 2010, the FDIC took over five banks that each cost more than $600 million. The total cost to the fund that day was more ...
Members of Congress urge investigation into sexual abuse in immigrant detention centers
Posted: Jan. 17, 2012 | Tags: Frontline, immigration, PBS
Citing our October film Lost in Detention, 30 members of Congress are pressing the Government Accountability Office to look into the issue of sexual abuse at immigration detention centers:
… This review should include facilities run by the Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), private facilities under contract with ICE to hold immigration detainees, and those public facilities (like county jails) also under contract with ICE. Additionally, please identify what steps DHS is taking to rectify the problem and suggest any actions it needs to consider in order to ensure that sexual abuse does not continue to plague the immigration detention system.
Our ...
Aaron awarded fellowship
Posted: Dec. 20, 2011 | Tags: Workshop news
Our Kat Aaron, project editor of What Went Wrong, has been named as an Alicia Patterson Fellow for 2012. The prestigious Patterson fellowship will allow Aaron to continue her reporting into the functioning of the nation's civil courts system. She wrote two stories on the civil courts earlier this year, exploring the history of controversy around the Legal Services Corporation and the impact of budget cuts on civil justice. The program, named for Alicia Patterson, the longtime editor and publisher of Newsday, was was established in 1965 to support working journalists pursuing in-depth reporting. It is America’s oldest ...
Producer nominated for Flying Cheaper
Posted: Dec. 16, 2011 | Tags: airline maintenance
Photo by Jeff Watts, AU
Young gets second nomination.
Rick Young, PBS FRONTLINE and Investigative Reporting Workshop producer, was nominated for a 2012 Writers Guild award today for Flying Cheaper, which aired earlier this year.
The program was a follow-up to last year’s Flying Cheap, a one-hour co-production of the Workshop and FRONTLINE, for which Young received a 2011 Writers’ Guild award in the documentary category.
In Flying Cheaper, we examined the growth of contract maintenance in the airline industry, as carriers outsource more of their work.
The Writers Guild of America, West and the Writers Guild of America ...
The Workshop needs your help
Posted: Dec. 15, 2011 | Tags: Workshop news
For nearly three years, the Investigative Reporting Workshop has been bringing you outstanding coverage of key issues. We’ve reported on the banking crisis, stimulus funding for green energy projects, lobbying by the nuclear power industry, among other stories. Our partnership with FRONTLINE has produced acclaimed documentaries on airline safety and immigration detention. Our ongoing What Went Wrong project is putting a spotlight on the systemic issues facing the American economy, providing a context for the current debates in Washington and the motivation of the people participating in the nationwide Occupy movement. Executive Editor Charles Lewis has written extensively about ...
