CONTENTS

THE IRE JOURNAL 20 – 27 INS ABUSES Series exposes corruption, TABLE OF CONTENTS ineptitude and racism MARCH/APRIL 2002 By Brent Walth and Rich Read The Oregonian FOCUSING TRAINING EFFORTS 4 INVISIBLE LABOR By Brant Houston Immigrants exploited, endangered in the workplace 5 NEWS BRIEFS AND MEMBER NEWS By Thomas Maier 6 PLANNING UNDER WAY Newsday FOR SAN FRANCISCO CONFERENCE U.S. CUSTOMS More than people cross the borders By Gina Bramucci By Bill Conroy The IRE Journal San Antonio Business Journal 8 SNOW JOB Winter Olympic goodies 28 LIVES AT RISK courtesy of Uncle Sam Emergency room lapses, apparent cover-ups revealed By Donald L. Barlett By Valeri Williams and James B. Steele WFAA - Dallas Time Inc. 9 LEGAL CORNER 30 CLOSER LOOK AT 990S REVEALS HIDDEN COSTS Alternative dispute resolution often IN NONPROFIT FUNDRAISING chosen to bar reporters By Harvy Lipman The Chronicle of Philanthropy Richard C. Reuben 10 HIGHWAY HAZARD 32 PASSING NOTES Medical certification flaws Judge, clerk make ethnic slurs; keep unfit truckers on the road investigation prompts reprimand By Karen Dorn Steele By Steve Twedt The (Spokane) Spokesman-Review Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 13 WALKING,TALKING 33 USING THE GAO WEB SITE THE MILITARY BEAT By Carolyn Edds The IRE Journal By Steve Weinberg The IRE Journal 34 POLICE NETWORK ABUSED 14 STACKED DECK FAVORS Information used for private gains, vendettas GOVERNMENT SECRECY By M. L. Elrick Better Government Association Detroit Free Press study of state public records laws – and survey of IRE members – shows ABOUT THE COVER citizens are at disadvantage. Angel Avila, 15, from Honduras, was By Charles Davis for The IRE Journal nicknamed “The Cherub.” He was arrested for shoplifting and gave up his request 16 DETAILING QUESTIONABLE to live in the U.S. after two months in POLICE SHOOTINGS a juvenile detention center where he had REQUIRED EXTENSIVE SEARCH OF been in fights, pepper-sprayed and held in DOCUMENTS By David S. Fallis solitary confinement. The Washington Post Cover story, page 20-27

Cover photo by Michael Lloyd, The Oregonian

MARCH/APRIL 2002 3 THE IRE JOURNAL FROM THE IRE OFFICES VOLUME 25 NUMBER 2 Focusing training efforts DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS & EDITOR Len Bruzzese e know it’s a tough year for every journalist and for every MANAGING EDITOR newsroom. We know that budgets for training and travel to Anita Bruzzese Wconferences are often the first to go. And we know that everyone’s personal budget is stretched. But here at IRE we believe that we should ART DIRECTOR keep sharing and learning, and we are doing all we can to make it easier for Wendy Gray members to get the help and training they need. BRANT HOUSTON

SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR In January, we had an extraordinarily successful regional conference at the National Press Steve Weinberg Club in Washington, D.C. With the help of supporters at the Press Club and a strong contingent of terrific speakers, we offered a program of a dozen panels that brought more than 200 CONTRIBUTING LEGAL EDITOR journalists together for a day. David Smallman That kind of close-knit workshop is the kind of training we think will be the most affordable and valuable in the coming months. So – with the help of newsroom training directors, members EDITORIAL INTERN Gina Bramucci and friends – we are putting together a series of one-day seminars on doing investigative and enterprise stories while on the beat. These workshops are planned for every area of the country and they will be inexpensive and easy to get to for journalists from small- to medium-sized news IRE organizations and for journalists in the bureaus of larger newspapers. Our first one will be in Madison, Wisc. A special thanks goes to Andy Hall of the Wisconsin IRE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR State Journal, who brought together a sponsoring group including his newspaper, Lee Newspapers, Brant Houston local news organizations and press associations to make it happen. We hope to have a dozen more workshops over the next 15 months and are already planning BOARD OF DIRECTORS events in Southern California, Michigan and Connecticut. The workshops will be staffed by IRE CHAIRMAN trainers and expert journalists who volunteer their help. The program will include such topics as James Neff, The Seattle Times document and Internet searches, cultivating sources, doing difficult interviews and making better use of open records and Freedom of Information laws. In addition, there will be materials placed PRESIDENT David Dietz, Bloomberg News on the Web site as follow-up to these sessions. If you are interested in helping us, please contact me at [email protected] or IRE Training VICE PRESIDENT Shawn McIntosh, The Clarion-Ledger Director Ron Nixon at [email protected]. We are looking forward to these workshops that have the grassroots spirit of IRE. TREASURER Joel Kaplan, Syracuse University Federal contracts, contributions on Web SECRETARY As part of IRE’s effort to help members in their federal government watchdog role, we continue Ed Delaney, Barnes and Thornburg to expand our services at the Campaign Finance Information Center (www.campaignfinance.org). Paul Adrian, KDFW-Dallas We have improved the “power search” capabilities so that you can search for free the last David Boardman, The Seattle Times 10 years of federal contracts for a specific contractor (try Enron) and then see to whom that James V. Grimaldi, The Washington Post particular contractor’s political action committee contributed. We plan to increase the search Chris Heinbaugh, WFAA-Dallas capabilities in the coming months. Cheryl Phillips, Freelance Duane Pohlman, WEWS-Cleveland Belt-tightening at IRE Stephen Miller, The New York Times Like everyone, IRE is watching its budget by cutting costs. But we also are launching new Mark Rochester, Newsday initiatives that we hope will attract funds and become self-sustaining. In the coming months, we Stuart Watson, WCNC-Charlotte will announce the new efforts on the Web site, through our listservs and our publications. We hope you will suggest areas in which we can provide training, resources, and help. In the coming months, we will work hard to ensure that IRE members will continue to The IRE Journal (ISSN0164-7016) is pub- receive a high level of support despite these difficult economic times. We also will not slow lished six times a year by Investigative in our efforts to build the endowment fund so that the IRE will remain financially secure Reporters and Editors, Inc. 138 Neff Annex, Missouri School of Journalism, and independent in the future. Columbia, MO 65211, 573-882-2042. As you can see from the inserted Endowment Update in this issue, the individual E-mail: [email protected]. Subscriptions are response to the endowment drive has been widespread and impressive. Many thanks $60 in the U.S., $70 for institutions and those outside the U.S. Periodical postage paid from the board and staff. at Columbia, MO. Postmaster: Please send address changes to IRE. USPS #4516708 Brant Houston is executive director of IRE and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. He can be reached through e-mail at [email protected] or by calling 573-882-2042.

4 THE IRE JOURNAL I R E N E W S

Members seeking jobs IRE Award winners share MEMBER NEWS get free Web site ads techniques in new book he North Carolina Bar Association’s 2001 As part of IRE’s commitment to help mem- Hot off the presses! IRE’s latest book – The TMedia & the Law Awards, which recog- bers during the economic downturn, job-wanted IRE Collection:Winning Investigations – spotlights ads have been added to the list of benefits the top investigative reporting from 2000. nize insightful coverage on law-related available to members. The book recognizes the winners and finalists issues, have honored Paul Garber of the Job seekers can now anonymously post from the 2001 IRE Awards in print, broadcast Greensboro News & Record for his story their qualifications and the position wanted and online journalism. For each winning story, on the IRE Web site, where the information a synopsis is provided along with information on child welfare and the termination will be accessible to news managers around on how the investigation was performed and of parental rights in North Carolina. the world. the techniques and resources that proved most Molly Hennessy-Fiske has moved valuable. Judges’ comments are included for all Each listing includes a blind e-mail address to The (Raleigh) News & Observer as a gen- that automatically forwards responses to the medal and certificate winners. job seeker without revealing his or her identity. The collection, a salute to top investigative eral assignment reporter on the metro Members can then invite potential employers work, presents an opportunity for IRE members desk. Deedra Lawhead is now city to contact them. to admire and learn from the work of their editor for the Lexington Herald-Leader. IRE also will continue to post job openings colleagues. The lessons will serve as a valuable Klare Ly, formerly of WPTZ-TV in Platts- for reporters, producers, researchers, editors resource for years to come. and faculty that are submitted by employers. The IRE Collection: Winning Investigations burgh, N.Y., is now a general assignment Visit the IRE Job Center (www.ire.org/jobs/) can be ordered through the IRE Web site reporter for public television station for more details. (www.ire.org), by calling 573-882-3364 or KETA-TV in Oklahoma City. Colleen O’Dea by sending a check and ordering information OSHA and mortgage data to IRE at 138 Neff Annex, Missouri School received honorable mention in the 2001 updated in IRE collection of Journalism, Columbia, Mo. 65211. Books Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism. The IRE and NICAR database library are $16 each for IRE members, $30 each for O’Dea, a reporter for the Daily Record recently updated two major components of its nonmembers. Include $4 for postage for the first in Parsippany, N.J., was cited for “The Work- book, $2 for each additional book. collection – the Occupational Safety and Health ing Homeless: New Casualties of Welfare Administration workplace safety and Home Reform,” which appeared in the August Mortgage Disclosure Act databases. National CAR conference The OSHA data contains detailed informa- is March 14-17 in Philly 2000 issue of the New Jersey Reporter. tion regarding workplace inspections, injuries, The National Computer-Assisted Reporting Carlos Sanchez is now the editor of the hazardous substance accidents, as well as Conference, which will take place March Waco Tribune-Herald. He was previously the violations for federally inspected companies in 14-17 at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown the U.S. and its territories. Journalists can help Philadelphia, is an opportunity for newsrooms state editor for the Austin American-States- protect public safety by identifying companies to participate in one of the most essential man. Jacqueline Thomas, former edito- within their communities that have hazardous training sessions in journalism. rial page editor for The Baltimore Sun, now working conditions. More than 50 panels, touching on every writes a column called “Letter from Chicago” The HMDA data includes records of mort- beat, will be featured at this year’s conference, gage applications reported in 2000 by all banks, as well as hands-on classes on databases, for several small newspaper group papers. savings and loans, savings banks and credit spreadsheets, Internet research, mapping Fredric N. Tulsky of the San Jose Mercury unions with assets of more than $10 million and statistical analysis. Special sessions on News was a finalist in the International and offices in metropolitan areas. It contains terrorism, aviation safety and other heightened Consortium for Investigative Journalists demographic information about loan applica- reader-viewer concerns have been added. tions, including race, gender and income; the To register for the conference, visit 2001 Awards for Outstanding International purpose of the loan; the type of loan; and www.ire.org/training/philly or call IRE at Investigative Reporting. ICIJ recognized whether the loan was approved or declined. 573-882-2042. For hotel reservations, call Tulsky for his series “Uncertain Refuge,” Reporters can review practices of local lenders 215-893-1600 and ask for the IRE and NICAR by identifying banks, savings and loans, savings room block. which investigated the nature of U.S. banks or credit unions that show high rates of asylum policy. Tulsky analyzed more than denials for loans sought by minorities. Update … 175,000 Justice Department records for To order the data, contact the database library Senior contributing editor Steve Weinberg the series and traced one man’s journey at 573-884-7711 or peruse its government has added another book to his list of the best of from Cameroon to the United States. data collection, including documentation and investigative books for 2001, which appeared sample data, online at www.ire.org/datalibrary/ in the January-February edition: “Holy War, Send Member News items to Len Bruzzese at databases. Inc.” (Free Press) by Peter Bergen. [email protected] and include a phone number for verification.

MARCH/APRIL 2002 5 I R E N E W S

Running for the Board of Directors PLANNING The IRE Board of Directors serves as the gov- erning body of IRE and meets several times a year – both in person and in conference UNDER WAY FOR calls – to debate and vote on issues. Direc- tors serve on various committees made SAN FRANCISCO up of board members and appointed non- board members to focus more closely on such topics as diversity, the endowment, CONFERENCE freedom of information and programs. IRE members considering running for the board will have a shot at one of seven seats this year, although incum- bents are allowed to seek re-election. BY GINA BRAMUCCI Although members have until May 31 THE IRE JOURNAL to get on the “election-day ballot,” can- didates have an opportunity this year to also be on an absentee ballot that will be made available to members not able to eporters and editors are bound With the San Francisco Chronicle as attend the conference. [See accompanying article.] for the City by the Bay this year a local host, the conference location also for the IRE National Conference, will allow for greater focus on coverage To get on both ballots, candidates must R May 30-June 2. The conference has of diversity, said Houston. “A great thing declare by April 8. Declaring consists of sending a candidacy statement with brief become an invaluable tradition for newsrooms about San Francisco is the diversity of the biographical information to the IRE offices. around the country, offering journalists media in scope, ethnicity and approach,” the chance to enrich their skills through he said. This information also will start going onto workshops and panel discussions featuring In addition, the always-popular presenters the IRE Web site starting the first of April. top-notch investigative reporters. Donald Barlett and James Steele will make Even if you don’t make it onto the absentee The IRE conference comes at a crucial another appearance this year, sharing what ballot, statements will be accepted as late as moment in journalism. With national security they’ve learned in more than three decades May 21 for Web posting. high on the public agenda, reporters and edi- of prize-winning investigative journalism. Candidates who wait until the conference tors are facing increasing challenges to free- (Note their story on the Olympics in this to announce, must deliver a one-page dom of information. The issue of The IRE Journal.) statement/bio to the IRE executive director San Francisco conference IRE National Conference Fast-track sessions or deputy director by 5 p.m. Pacific time on Friday, May 31. These – along with the previ- will present beat basics, May 30-June 2, 2002 aimed at print, broadcast Hyatt Regency ous Web announcements – will be posted on while giving special atten- and online journalists will a bulletin board in the main conference area. tion to the major stories and at 5 Embarcadero Center deliver the nuts and bolts information access issues of beat reporting – offer- At the Saturday afternoon (June 1) mem- Special IRE room rates: bership meeting, candidates will need to be that have emerged in the $99 if booked by Mar. 15 ing tips for backgrounding nominated and seconded from the floor by past year. $139 if booked by Mar. 31 individuals and for cover- two other IRE members. There will be no Panels will highlight the $169 if booked by April 26 ing schools, businesses, nominating speeches, but candidates will best investigative journal- city halls and courts. have two minutes to address their peers. ism from around the nation, delving into On Thursday, panels dedicated to com- The ballot at the membership meeting will energy regulation and deregulation, immi- puter-assisted reporting will help journalists include all candidates declared through the gration, military and defense issues and learn and fine-tune their CAR skills. Veteran May 31 deadline. campaign finance reform. In light of the reporters will collaborate with NICAR Immediately following the board elections, high-profile collapse of Enron and the Kmart staff to tackle issues related to the criminal there will be a separate election for IRE bankruptcy, attendees also can expect tips justice system, as well as campaign finance, Awards contest judges. Those candidates on using business documents and covering the latest census releases, mapping and will be nominated and seconded from the floor. Voting will be by ballot. corporate fraud. geographical information systems. This year’s conference will integrate As always, the winners and finalists of the Board candidates wanting to appear on the international journalists into panels more IRE Awards will be announced on Saturday. absentee ballot and/or the IRE Web site, should submit a candidacy statement/bio The awards presentation is an occasion for than ever before. “The issues we cover have limited to 400 words. Head shots are encour- clearly become global,” said Brant Houston, IRE to pay tribute to the best investigative aged. Send announcements via e-mail to IRE’s executive director. “IRE is expanding reporting from 2001. Deputy Director Len Bruzzese at [email protected] and building on the network of journalists On Sunday, speakers from the Poynter along with contact information. helping each other,” CONTINUED ON PAGE 7 ×

6 THE IRE JOURNAL I R E N E W S Absentee ballots to be allowed Institute will expand the work they did last year to help reporters strengthen their skills for first time in board elections and build their careers. Special sessions By The IRE Journal staff Declaring as a candidate will focus on becoming a better writer or developing better broadcast skills – essential The deadline for candidates to make it tools in a time of tough markets. For the first time in IRE’s 27 years, absentee onto the absentee ballot is April 8. Candi- ballots will be accepted in the board of dates announce by delivering candidacy IRE business directors’ election this June. statements and bio information (up to Each year, IRE addresses membership The new voting procedure will allow 400 words) to IRE. A photo is optional, but business during the conference. Elections interested members who are unable to encouraged. [See accompanying article on for board of director seats will take place attend the annual membership meeting at running for the board.] on Saturday, June 1. Members can request the national conference to participate in Candidate information will go on the Web an absentee ballot if unable to attend the choosing the organization’s leaders. by April 10 and absentee ballots will be conference. [See accompanying article.] “Over the years, there have been concerns ready by April 15. A separate election for IRE Awards contest voiced by members who could not afford or Candidates can still declare via e-mail judges will take place immediately following did not have the time to attend the national until May 21 and get their info on the Web, board elections. conference,” said Mike McGraw, a member but their names will only appear on the The conference will be held at the San of the special committee created by the conference ballot. Francisco Hyatt Regency. Members can reg- board to examine the absentee question. ister online at www.ire.org/training/sanfran/ “The board felt it was time to address that Requesting ballots or photocopy the form found in this issue of issue,” he said. IRE members whose membership status the Journal. Hotel reservations can be made by calling the Hyatt Regency at 415-788-1234 The special committee includes Shawn will be current through June 30, 2002 may or 800-233-1234. McIntosh of The Clarion-Ledger; James Polk, request absentee ballots by phone, e-mail or in person. Each ballot will be sent to the CNN; Dianna Hunt, Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Gina Bramucci is editorial intern for The IRE James Steele, Time Inc.; and McGraw, The address of record for that member along Journal and a graduate student at the Missouri Kansas City Star. with information on how to fill out the School of Journalism. McGraw added that all sides in the issue ballot properly. Requests may be submitted – especially those who have historically through May 17. Completed absentee bal- opposed absentee balloting – worked hard lots must be received at the IRE offices by to come up with an acceptable solution. He May 24 to be valid. said the IRE staff and board have come up Only international members requesting absen- with a practical and secure application of tee ballots will be allowed to vote via e-mail. the new procedures. Absentee ballots will not be made avail- Absentee balloting is meant to supple- able at the national conference nor will ment, not replace, IRE’s traditional election previously completed ballots be accepted at process, which encourages membership the national conference. Also, any member meeting attendance as a sign of commit- having submitted an absentee ballot in ment to the group and to involve as many advance, who then attends the conference, members as possible in discussions of shall have his or her absentee vote voided. importance. “If you attend the conference, you are Members attending the annual confer- expected to vote at the conference,” McGraw ence are still expected to cast their votes said. at the membership meeting. Only those not planning to attend the meeting – and Membership meeting requesting a ballot in advance – will be able All candidates still must be nominated to vote before the conference. and seconded from the floor at the annual The absentee balloting system will membership meeting. They also must be include several safeguards, including use of present at the meeting and deliver their addresses of record, signed special ballot two-minute speeches to remain eligible. envelopes kept under lock and key and The special committee on absentee bal- sealed until the membership meeting, and loting will consult after the June election to cross-checks of absentee voters against review procedures, listen to feedback from conference registration rolls. members and suggest changes, if needed.

MARCH/APRIL 2002 7 FEATURES

series for Time and very much in SI’s tradition of tackling controversial subjects. To get the story meant employing techniques all reporters use on any long-term project: Sports Illustrated Sports

interviews; tips; field trips; reams of statistics; historical records; and government documents. In the end, “Snow Job” was a classic public records story – pieced together from the records

Carl Yarbrough Carl of dozens of federal, state and local agencies. The numbers Breaking down the overall cost of the games to federal taxpayers was the single most chal- lenging task. There is no one source for the amount Washington has shipped to Utah. Some data is included in GAO audits. Other statistics came from Utah’s Olympic Officer. Still more data was provided by individual federal and state agencies after phone calls, letters or FOI requests. All along we met resistance, notably from federal agencies. The Department of Transporta- SNOW tion and U.S. Forest Service proved especially difficult; a Transportation Department official initially told us there was no way to provide the figures that we requested. But persistence JOB paid off and DOT eventually acknowledged that, yes, they did have the numbers, and then, albeit reluctantly, provided them. Winter Olympic goodies Another obstacle arose when agencies sup- courtesy of Uncle Sam plied different numbers for the cost of the same project. The federally funded temporary Olympic BY DONALD L. BARLETT parking lots are a case in point. AND JAMES B. STEELEOF Millions of dollars were poured into open TIME INC. fields near Park City to build two 80-acre lots that will be used for about one month by those n years past, prospectors looking for – two and one-half times more costly than the who are lucky enough to be able to afford tickets precious metals sank shafts all over the 1996 summer games in Atlanta, which had to events in nearby Park City and Olympic Wasatch Mountains outside Salt Lake three times the events. Park. Then, courtesy of federal taxpayers, the I City. The mines are closed now, but In fact, more federal money is being spent lots will be torn up and the land restored to its Utahans haven’t given up the hunt. They just on the Salt Lake games than on all seven previous state. moved operations a little further east, to a place Olympic games held in the U.S. since 1904 The GAO put the cost of the lots and other called Washington, D.C., where finding gold – combined – in inflation-adjusted dollars. It “spectator transportation” items at $77 million. turned out to be a lot easier than it ever was works out to an average of $625,000 per athlete, Utah’s Olympic officer says the U.S. contributed back in Utah. though of course none of this money actually $31 million for the lots. The Utah Department Welcome to the 2002 Winter Olympic goes to the athletes. Instead, the beneficiaries of Transportation, which built the lots, put the Games, sponsored in part by you – and all are an assortment of local businessmen, resort federal share at $23 million, though the final other American taxpayers. As we discovered owners and developers. Millionaires all. total won’t be known until after the games. in an investigation for Sports Illustrated, Utah The story originated more than a year When conflicts like this arose we invariably used officials have been remarkably successful in ago when SI editors came across a General the lower number. We try to be conservative in prying money out of Washington to pay for Accounting Office (GAO) audit indicating that using numbers; if you don’t overreach, it usually anything even remotely connected to this year’s the federal share of U.S.-sponsored Olympic means less trouble down the road and it doesn’t games in Salt Lake. games was soaring and approached us about take away from your point. The tab, we ultimately concluded, is $1.5 the possibility of taking an in-depth look. In billion thus far, making the Salt Lake games many ways it was a logical story for us – much Historical record the most expensive ever for federal taxpayers in the spirit of our 1998 corporate welfare We have long found that readers like to see

8 THE IRE JOURNAL FEATURES a story placed in context. In many projects, LEGAL CORNER examining the historical record may not only turn up evidence to buttress the key points of a story, but also provides fresh insights and docu- Alternative Dispute Resolution ments disparate treatment and that old standby – institutional hypocrisy. So it was in this case often chosen to bar reporters where a review of previous Olympics held in the United States – particularly the Summer Games in Atlanta (1996) and Los Angeles (1984), and the Winter Games in Lake Placid (1932 and hen the two sides involved in a civil government, the courts 1980) – proved especially valuable. W dispute try to resolve their differences will do so. RICHARD C. REUBEN For example, statistics on federal spending in before a court trial, they may enter With regard to arbitra- Los Angeles allowed us to place comparable Salt what is known as Alternative Dispute Resolution tion, there are laws that allow for enforceability Lake spending in context. On a per-athlete basis, (ADR). Different forms of ADR exist, including of arbitration agreements and awards. Under the federal outlays rose from $11,000 to $625,000. mediation, non-mediated settlements, arbitra- Federal Arbitration Act and similar state laws, That would translate into a current minimum tion, or trials before a judge or jury that have courts may decide whether there is an agreement wage of $190 an hour, a more meaningful number nonbinding verdicts. to arbitrate and if there is one the court will for the average reader than $1.5 billion. However, these proceedings are not open to enforce that agreement. When the arbitrator Also, in poring through the archives of the media, which is exactly why many people decides the case, it might go back to the court the 1980 Games at Lake Placid, we found the choose them, says Richard C. Reuben, an associ- for purposes of enforcement, and the court has bankruptcy papers that the Lake Placid Olympic ate professor of law and adjunct professor of continuing jurisdiction over the case while it is Committee had prepared – but never filed. The journalism at the University of Missouri in privately arbitrated. When you look at the case Games ended with a $6 million deficit and the Columbia. law on entanglement, this is actually a higher Carter Administration had refused even a modest “ADR provides a forum in which parties can degree of entanglement than has been found in bailout of $3 million. New York state eventually discuss their differences in a frank and candid most of the cases in which the courts actually came to the rescue, eliminating the need for manner without worrying about someone else found entanglement. Thus, the structure of the bankruptcy. (Should the Salt Lake Games end hearing it. But for a journalist, what sounds like law that generally permits the enforceability with a deficit, this could make for a fascinating ‘confidential’ on one side sounds like ‘secret’ on of those private agreements to arbitrate creates contrast). the other,” Reuben says. the type of entanglement that gives rise to the Finally, by compiling the voting records Reuben made his comments to The Reporters application of the state action doctrine. Because of of Utah lawmakers in previous Olympics, we Committee For Freedom of the Press. The fol- the partnership between public and private actors, established that the state’s congressional delega- lowing is an excerpt from that interview, reprinted those private arbiters should be considered public tion, which brought all the federal tax dollars with permission: actors for constitutional purposes. home to Utah, had opposed such spending at Lake Placid in 1980, indeed, had even opposed Why is a court-ordered settlement Should public access to ADR pro- selection of the New York community as the conference not considered to be a ceedings depend on whether the site for the games. court proceeding? litigants are public or private enti- Because there’s a lot of information, ideas and ties? The courthouse interests that are discussed that may or may not In some respects, it does matter. In most states, Tracking real estate deals is rarely simple. find their way into the final settlement agreement, where one of the parties is a government entity For this project, piecing together all the details and it’s the agreement itself that the parties are subject to open records and meetings laws, press to show how private interests benefited from asking the courts to enforce. access may be granted. On the other hand, access millions of dollars in federal road subsidies to disputes involving private parties is often proved to be a most tedious exercise. Businesses will often agree in a determined by the parties themselves. One area that was the focus of considerable contract that, if a dispute arises, real estate activity adjoins Utah Olympic Park, they will go to private arbitration Should access depend on the type site of the ski jumping, bobsled and luge events. rather than file a complaint in of ADR used? For example, should In the fall of 1990, a California developer, court. If arbitration is chosen in there be different rules for Clinton Charles Myers, and his partners acquired this manner, is it public? non-mediated settlement as more than 1,100 acres on the mountain that had One of the standards the U.S. Supreme Court opposed to court-ordered settle- long been eyed by Utah’s Olympic boosters as has used over the years to determine whether ment? the ideal site for ski jumping. private conduct can be viewed as public is the It seems to me that the arguments are greater Then Myers donated a third of the land for “entanglement rationale.” Under this rationale, that one should have access when the parties the Olympic park, in what was hailed at the time where the public and private conduct are suf- are compelled into mediation or another form as an act of great generosity, though in reality ficiently entangled to the point that it would of ADR. On the other hand, what makes those be fair to attribute that private conduct to the CONTINUED ON PAGE 31 × CONTINUED ON PAGE 37 ×

MARCH/APRIL 2002 9 FEATURES Post-Gazette Will Waldron Will

Fred Faerber lost his toes because of an accident and complication with diabetes. He said he wouldn’t go into the hospital until doctors agreed not to give him HIGHWAYinsulin, which would stop him from trucking. HAZARD Medical certification flaws keep unfit truckers on the road

BY STEVE TWEDT PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE

s news tips go, it didn’t pack the medications this time, passed his physical something larger – a systemwide hole in urgency of a four-alarm fire. and was back on the road. the federal safety net meant to insure that A local physician phoned in the The federal officials she contacted shrugged commercial truck and bus drivers are healthy Aautumn of 1996 to rant about a their shoulders, making her mad enough to enough to drive their 80,000-pound rigs on patient she’d seen a few months earlier. bust a blood pressure cuff. America’s highways. The truck driver had come to her for a But what kind of story was that? One physical exam required of commercial truck trucker circumvented the rules to keep his No tracking system and bus drivers every two years by the U.S. job. She didn’t know if he’d ever had an During the next three years, I collected Department of Transportation. Because some accident, or ever would. To preserve patient sources, stories, accident investigations and of his medications might impair his alertness, confidentiality, she wouldn’t tell me his name anything else I came across that involved a she would not sign his medical card. or where he worked. It didn’t warrant even commercial driver with a serious medical Now she’d learned that he’d gone to a news brief. condition who was involved in an accident. another doctor and, without mentioning his That single anecdote, though, revealed It became almost a hobby, picking up these

10 THE IRE JOURNAL FEATURES odd threads and adding them to the growing was the Florida gas hauler who hid his epilepsy accidents involving large commercial trucks collection. I even took nine months off while from his employer, then had a seizure while and buses then cross-matching against the in the Michigan Journalism Fellows program, driving. His tanker, loaded with 8,800 gallons driver-related factors. From there, the data though I made sure I met faculty members at of gasoline, went off the road, hit some trees got murky. the Ann Arbor university’s highly regarded and burst into flames, killing the driver. Broader categories such as fatal accidents transportation research institute while I was And the diabetic Texas trucker who forgot where the driver became ill or blacked out there. to take his insulin, ran two red lights and produced lots of hits but it wasn’t clear which Here’s what I learned early on: The Depart- rammed a sedan, killing the driver and injuring ones applied. A truck driver might pass out ment of Transportation requires that every two small children. Under DOT regulations, for lots of reasons, from a bad flu to a heart commercial driver carry a valid medical insulin-dependent diabetics are not allowed to condition. On the other hand, an accident card certifying they are fit to drive a big drive commercial vehicles unless they have a attributed to a truck straying from its lane may rig. The card can be signed by anyone with special exemption. mask a medical problem with the driver. To state authorization to do physicals, including determine which was which, I had to track chiropractors and physician assistants. The …the driver who passed his down the investigating police department for examiner doesn’t need to demonstrate any DOT physicals despite having each accident (it could be city, county or state proficiency or understanding of DOT medical } police) and request the incident report. regulations. Also, as was apparent from that narcolepsy so severe, he’d fall Usually that meant sending a letter with first phone call, no tracking system exists for a $2 or $3 check, then hoping it took them drivers who fail a physical, allowing them to asleep mid-sentence at the less than a millennium to process and mail go from examiner to examiner until they find dinner table. During the day he a copy to me. one who will pass them. Some of these reports turned out to be Some of the stories that surfaced just worked two jobs, hauling heating highly detailed and complete; others amounted around Pittsburgh were equal parts horrifying oil in the morning and driving to a few scribbled notes, obviously written in and hilarious: a hurry and without much thought. Together, • The driver who passed his DOT physicals children home on a school bus they provided only a partial picture of what despite having narcolepsy so severe, he’d in the afternoon. None of his I wanted to know. fall asleep mid-sentence at the dinner table. Two FARS categories sounded like sure During the day he worked two jobs, hauling examiners had asked him if he things – fatal accidents where either a reaction heating oil in the morning and driving chil- had sleeping problems. ~ to medications, or a failure to take medication, dren home on a school bus in the afternoon. was a listed factor. On the first run through, None of his examiners had asked him if he Another obvious database, DOT’s Fatal about 30 to 35 cases showed up each year. had sleeping problems. Accident Reporting System, or FARS, proved Considering more than 5,000 people die • An independent trucker who scouted examin- less helpful. Setting up an Access query for each year in big rig collisions, it’s not an eye-

ers to avoid “by-the-book” types who would FARS was easy enough, sorting out fatal CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 × give him a thorough physical. He successfully passed the DOT physicals for 20 years before an examiner noticed he had an artificial leg. Another driver was routinely certified despite having only one eye (and no depth perception). Post-Gazette • A driver who, when informed that his anger- control medication might make him sleepy, reassured the examiner that “I don’t take it Robin Rombach Robin when I’m going to be driving.” Other stories tugged at the heart, like the 37-year-old driver who regretted telling his doctor about a heart attack suffered hauling a load of canned soup. That admission cost him his job and, if he had it to do over, he said he would keep driving so his family could collect the insurance. He figured when a massive heart attack hit him on the road, he’d stay conscious long enough to safely steer his truck off the highway. Checking newspaper databases, various Tom Ries scouted different examiners in hopes of finding one who might not notice his artificial leg. It went tragic stories came up across the U.S. There undetected by doctors for 20 years.

MARCH/APRIL 2002 11 FEATURES

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11 a fatal accident scene, taking time to fill out a review the bus crash and assess the effectiveness catching total. But what if they all involved detailed report, then sending it to a state official of the commercial driver medical certification the same medical condition, or the same who will accurately record and forward it to program. medication? Washington, D.C. It’s a gross measurement Knowing the national spotlight would be In refining the query, though, an unexpected at best. directed on this issue, however briefly, I pulled hazard sign flashed – year after year, about out my three-year-old collection of string, half the medication-related fatalities occurred A single catastrophe refreshed earlier interviews, and put together in one particular Southern state. How could What finally crystallized the truck driver the Post-Gazette’s two-part series, “Rigged for this be? Officials in Washington were puzzled, story was not a database, or a set of statistics, Disaster.” It was published the week before the too, and checked into it. Turned out, the state or any other sleuthing by us. It was, predict- hearing and I made sure that NTSB Chairman ably and inevitably, a fatal Jim Hall had a copy to read during his flight crash of epic proportions. from Washington to New Orleans. On Mother’s Day, 1999, 22 We have no tangible evidence that the Post- passengers died when their Gazette stories affected the outcome of the New Orleans chartered bus hearing. But, at least for our readers, we were

Post-Gazette veered off the highway and able to frame a single catastrophe in New into an embankment. Orleans in the context of a larger public safety During the investiga- issue that affects anyone who drives U.S. tion, officials learned that highways. Steve Mellon Steve the bus driver had a chronic When the NTSB later released its final heart condition and failing report on the New Orleans tragedy, among its kidneys, either of which recommendations to DOT was one calling for could have disqualified him tougher standards to make sure examiners know from driving. The night what they’re doing. Another would establish a before the fateful trip, he tracking system to list every driver application was hospitalized for diz- for medical certification and its outcome. ziness and nausea and, Given the imprecision of our fatal accident against medical advice, he reporting system, it may be impossible to Dr. Pamela Gianni says she has been threatened after telling truckers they were left the hospital without measure if those proposed changes will make medically unfit to drive. completing his dialysis. a dent in the yearly death toll. But they can’t Authorities also learned he hurt. employee responsible for processing accident smoked marijuana that night, then reported for investigations was inexplicably coding alcohol- work early the next morning. Steve Twedt is a special projects writer and related crashes as reactions to medication. With so many deaths, the crash naturally editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who recently authored a four-part series examining So this is FARS at its most basic level: attracted national attention. The National the growing number of mentally ill teens who are A system that depends on a harried police Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) scheduled being “warehoused” in juvenile lockups. officer carefully and thoroughly investigating a hearing for January 2000 in New Orleans to

12 THE IRE JOURNAL BOOKS

monolith, an alien culture, a vast bureaucracy of strangers” is ignorant, Offley says. “The WALKING, stereotypes are very old, and they never die. They are as false now as they have ever been.” TALKING Exploding myths Offley begins his tutorial by describing the five armed services – Army, Air Force, THE MILITARY BEAT Navy, Marines and Coast Guard. Each of those branches has its unique mission, unique organization and unique rank structure. Offley provides the details. They are numerous, jargon-filled and sometimes confusing. He BY STEVE WEINBERG cannot dispel all the confusion, but he tries THE IRE JOURNAL mightily to do so. Before the book ends, Offley also describes: how to expose phony war heroes; d Offley has covered the military excitement and joy of two Air Force fliers help readers/viewers/listeners comprehend for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, just returned from their first night combat the death of a serviceman or servicewoman; The Stars and Stripes, and Defense mission over Iraq. ... In a shattered airport cover the crash of a military aircraft; write E Watch newsletter. He can explain control tower at Mogadishu, I watched three about secret intelligence operations; mine the difference between a second lieutenant young airmen just past their teens ignore news releases for project leads; prepare and a chief petty officer the random gunfire outside as for battle in the field; decipher the defense without hesitating. When they coordinated a massive budget; dig into the performance of private- talk of weaponry begins, aerial supply campaign by sector defense contractors; and put the federal Offley knows the difference the light of a battery-powered Freedom of Information Act to productive between an M-16 and an lantern.” use. He also describes how to establish F-16. Lots of journalists But, he says, the rewards a working relationship with the base com- have no idea if those desig- of the military beat “are not mander; surf the many Pentagon-related Web nations refer to rifles, air- limited to interesting assign- sites; cultivate a no-nonsense relationship planes or tanks, much less ments, foreign travel and the with the public affairs officer and freedom how they differ in detail. adrenaline rush of a Scud of information officer (preferably by going In short, just as an expe- missile attack. There is the out of the way to meet each of the officers in rienced business journalist satisfaction that comes when person); be prepared to withhold (rather than can fluently define long and in-depth research pays off publish) information on so-called national short selling, just as an expe- with confirmation of a long- security grounds; pack for prolonged time in rienced political reporter can suppressed Cold War inci- or around the battlefield; and much more. explain the nuances of a U.S. dent. (Did you know the Exploding myths, Offley says reporters Senate filibuster, Offley can United States once dropped should never assume the military’s public talk the military talk. Pen & Sword: an atomic bomb on Canada?) affairs officer is in the know, that a com- Offley’s skills are espe- A Journalist’s Guide to There is the stronger fulfill- mander is omniscient, that seemingly coop- cially valuable in the cur- Covering the Military ment of coming to the assis- erative sources would never think of leaking By Ed Offley rent reporting climate. In tance of a military service a story to the journalistic competition, that Marion Street Press (Box some newsrooms, journalists 2249, Oak Park, Ill. 60304; person or veteran who has what appears in print or on the airwaves will who can be fairly termed www.marionstreetpress.com; suffered wrongdoing or inat- be read dispassionately by military sources. ignorant about most things 708-445-8330, 304 pages, tention at the hands of the Military-journalist relationships are fre- military recently traveled to $24.95 bureaucracy. There is the quently difficult to build because so many Afghanistan. If they carried sheer fun of exposing a military folks perceive journalists as left- Offley’s book with them, they might have phony self-described prisoner of war wing ideologues, while too many journalists sounded like they knew the jargon. who never served a day in uniform. perceive those in uniform as duped patriots. Offley has covered stories that might And there is the potential that the facts There has to be a better way. Offley’s book sound boring to some journalists – or you uncover could significantly – and is a good start. harrowing or awesomely important. “In positively – affect an ongoing military Steve Weinberg is senior contributing editor a covered aircraft revetment in Taif,” he policy debate.” to The IRE Journal, a book author and former reports, “I studied the expressions of sheer Writing about the military as a “remote executive director of IRE.

MARCH/APRIL 2002 13 FEATURES

appeals processes. Citizens often have their STACKED DECK FAVORS requests denied and the only way they can gain access to records is by appealing the agency’s GOVERNMENT denial.

The appeals process SECRECY If citizens are able to appeal in a cost- and time-efficient manner, in the forum of their Better Government Association study of state choice, citizens are more likely to challenge public records laws – and survey of IRE members – an agency’s denial. The BGA’s method of grading this criterion is based on three elements: shows citizens are at disadvantage. choice, cost and time. A petitioner should be BY CHARLES DAVIS able to choose the body that hears the appeal. FOR THE IRE JOURNAL The appeals process also should provide for administrative remedies to control the costs he results are in, and they’re not ratio of nearly 31:1. and time of appealing. pretty. • Journalists across the country believe that States with statutes that do not provide for A sweeping study of state FOI laws public officials abuse their discretion when an appeals process do not receive any points. T by the Better Government Associa- responding to FOI requests by a ratio of 11:1. These states fail to inform citizens that the tion reveals that most are weak and easily • Journalists across the country do not feel denial may be reviewed, and maybe reversed, undermined. The haphazard construction of confident that legitimate FOI requests will be by a higher authority. Allowing a petitioner state public records laws has resulted in an honored by a ratio of 11:1. to appeal a denial to court receives one point. information gap that significantly affects the The survey also found journalists believe Appealing directly to a court will assuredly citizenry’s ability to examine even the most that the cost of litigation is a deterrent to be the most expensive and take the most time. fundamental actions of government, the study fighting improper FOI refusals, that public Citizens are less likely to challenge a denial found. officials would not be held accountable for if an appeal means several years of litigation BGA researchers studied all 50 state public violations, and that important information costing thousands of dollars. records laws, and no state earned better than goes unpublished as a result of weak state Two points were awarded to states that Nebraska’s B-. Eleven states earned F ratings, FOI laws. require petitioners to first appeal to the director with the rest scattered between C and D. The To study the relative strengths of the FOI of the agency denying them access, then to an results are dismal, the details depressing even to laws, the BGA created a “gold standard” ombudsman and only then to court. By requir- hardened FOI observers who knew the national against which the laws of each state could be ing a petitioner to exhaust both administrative situation was grim. objectively and accurately measured. This gold remedies before allowing access to the court The study was prompted by years of run-ins standard was then developed into a simple, system, these states provide the petitioner no with obstinate public officials. BGA investiga- understandable report card, grading each state’s choice of forum. However, these states do tors have been refused requests to examine state performance on a four-point scale. provide for administrative remedies that may contracts and performance measures, denied The study measured several criteria regard- reduce the cost of the appeal if a favorable everything from documentation of ambulance ing access to information. The first three criteria ruling can be achieved before going to court. response times to the documents reviewed when that the BGA studied in assessing the strength By appealing first to the agency head and then making budgeting decisions, and ignored by of each state’s open records act are procedural, to an ombudsman, there is at least a chance of officials in nearly every major office at one involving the process the requesting party getting a favorable decision in a cost- and time- time or another. must undergo to gain access to public records. efficient manner. The presence of a legislatively The BGA decided to find out where its home The BGA’s concern with these procedural designated entity, either the head of the agency state of Illinois stood in relationship to other requirements is that a lengthy and burdensome or an ombudsman, as an appellate avenue states. Could Illinois be an aberration in an process is likely to discourage citizens from before resort to the courts earned states three otherwise sunshine-laden country? Well, no. making requests and seeking enforcement of points. States offering petitioners the choice Working closely with IRE, the BGA sur- the statute, which will result in less disclosure of appealing to the head of an agency or an veyed 191 investigative journalists across the of public information. To assess the procedural ombudsman, or going to court, received four U.S. The investigators asked these IRE members obstacles facing FOI requesters, the BGA points. Finally, states allowing citizens to to rank their satisfaction with the FOI laws in studied response time, the process of appealing pursue the channel of appeal of their choice the state where they practice their craft. The FOI denials and expediency, or the means to received five points. findings were entirely consistent with the BGA’s give a case priority on a court’s docket in front The results show that while many state overall analysis of the laws. The BGA/IRE of other matters because of time concerns. public records laws allow citizens to pursue the survey found that: Although most states did well in this section appellate channel of their choice, some states • Journalists across the country believe that open of the survey, managing to respond within legal force citizens to turn to the courts should they records are important to doing their job by a limits, rarer are any sort of detailed, effective wish to appeal a records denial.

14 THE IRE JOURNAL FEATURES Expediency and penalties The Model Open Expediency means to give a case priority Records Act on a court’s docket in front of other matters The BGA has read all 51 statutes because of time concerns. The BGA examined that have been graded in this each state statute to determine if a petitioner’s study. The five criteria and grad- appeal, in a court of law, would be expedited ing scale used to rank the states to the front of the docket so that it is heard have been derived directly from immediately. those 51 statutes. Among all 51 States that do not provide for expediency in statutes, the BGA found provi- their public record statute received no points. sions it feels would best promote States requiring a case to be heard within 21-30 the policy of requiring open gov- days after filing received three points. States ernment records. However, the received four points if they required a case to BGA was unable to find a statute be heard within 11-20 days after filing. Finally, that exhibited all five of these five points were awarded to states that require a provisions. In this study, the high- case to be heard within 10 days. est grade that was given out was a “B-“ to Nebraska. The following In the penalty category, the two criteria the is an example of an “A” statute: BGA used to weigh the strength of each state’s • Response time. An agency that public records act focus on the penalties levied receives in writing a request against an agency found to have violated the to examine any public records public records law. shall respond to such a request The two penalty criteria are: 1) whether within seven working days. The the court is required to award attorney’s fees response shall either communi- and court costs to the prevailing requestor; and cate that access to the record 2) what sanctions, if any, the agency may be will be granted or that access is subject to for failing to comply with the law. denied. The first penalty criteria the BGA used was • Appeals: Upon any denial of whether petitioners were entitled to attorney access to a government record, fees and court costs in the event they prevail the requestor may appeal that in their action. Allowing for such an award denial to any of the following: serves two purposes. First, it assures petitioners the district court of competent that their expenses will be covered in the event jurisdiction; an open records they are successful in their appeal, encouraging commission; the attorney gen- people to challenge an agency’s denial. Second, eral; or the head of agency that awarding fees and costs to the prevailing has denied access. petitioner will provide a deterrent to agencies • Expediency: A matter on appeal and promote compliance with the law. to a district court from a denial Language is critical here; the BGA’s grading of access to a record shall be scale for fees and costs contains phrases that expedited on the court’s docket and heard within seven days. warrant explanation. For example, “may” • Attorney fees and costs: A peti- means that fees and costs are to be awarded at tioner who prevails or sub- the judge’s discretion, while “shall” means stantially prevails in a court of that fees and costs must be awarded to the law against an agency that has prevailing petitioner. A statute that states fees denied access to an open record and costs “shall” be awarded will be stronger shall be awarded the costs of than a statute that provides fees and costs “may” litigation and attorney fees. be awarded. There also is a major difference • Sanctions: Any person who is between “prevail” and “substantially prevail” found in a court of law to have in terms of recovering attorney fees. “Prevail” violated the statute may be sub- refers to a situation where the petitioner wins ject to a civil fine not exceeding on all points, and is given access to all the $2,500, and shall be guilty of a records requested, while “substantially prevail” misdemeanor punishable by a refers to a situation where the petitioner wins fine not to exceed $2,500 or 90 on only some points, loses on other points and days in jail or both, and may be is only given access to some of the requested subject to termination.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 31 ×

MARCH/APRIL 2002 15 FEATURES

be “contrary to the public interest” to release DETAILING QUESTIONABLE certain documents. The Post sued the county for records. In the meantime, we turned to other sources, including autopsy reports and worker’s POLICE SHOOTINGS compensation records, to investigate. REQUIRED EXTENSIVE Questionable shootings The reporting began by identifying all police shootings that left a person injured or dead since SEARCH OF DOCUMENTS 1990. The Post had written about some of the more high-profile cases. But many shootings had been relegated to a brief in one of the BY DAVID S. FALLIS county newspapers, if noted at all. Because the THE WASHINGTON POST newspapers are not indexed, Whitlock spent months scanning years of microfiche at regional hortly after taking over the police beat in unarmed and committing no crime. The depart- libraries to compile a list of police shootings. Prince George’s County, Craig Whitlock ment attempted to cover up details of many of After identifying more than 100 victims from Swrote about officers shooting and killing a the deaths at the hands of police. One person, news clips, the Post requested autopsies of those man. Weeks later, he reported on another. whom police claim they shot in self-defense, who had died. The medical examiner’s findings And then another. In the last eight months of was actually unarmed and shot in the back while sometimes contradicted the brief “official” ver- 1999, police shot eight people, killing five. face down on the ground. Another man was shot sion offered by police in the shooting aftermath. Police were tight-lipped about the shootings, but as he relieved himself by the side of the road. Police said some of those who were killed had insisted one thing: cops were justified. Whitlock And, police shot a paralyzed, unarmed man as attacked officers, but records show they were began to investigate. he sat in his wheelchair. Stacked up against shot in the back. People whom the police had The end result, more than a year later, was the departments nationwide, county police shot and described as out-of-control, high on cocaine or publication of a four-day series by Whitlock and killed people over the decade at rates that far PCP were drug-free when they died. Clearly, me about gunplay and in-custody deaths involv- exceeded those in police departments serving there was a much larger story. ing Prince George’s police. Despite promises of the 50 largest cities and counties. We reported all we could about each of reform from county leaders, little had changed The single biggest challenge to reporting the 122 shootings, building files on each and to shed the department’s longstanding reputation the series was the absolute refusal by Prince summarizing information in computer databases for brutality. George’s police and the county’s lawyers to to help identify patterns. We tracked down the The Post found that officers had shot 122 disclose any information about these cases. victims who were wounded and the families of people from 1990 through mid-2001 and that They refused to provide the most basic details those who had been killed. We visited shooting each was ruled justified. No officer has been – including a complete list of the people they scenes, knocking on doors to locate witnesses. disciplined, yet almost half the victims were had shot. County lawyers wrote that it would In several cases, we found people who said they saw the shootings unfold, but were ignored or never interviewed by detectives. While many we contacted were helpful, many were reluctant to talk because they feared police reprisal. In the courthouse, criminal charges filed against individuals who were shot but survived The Washington Post Washington The

were valuable for details about the shootings. Charges sometimes included supporting affi- davits from officers, which provided a brief

Hamil Harris Hamil narrative of the events. Most of the 75 people who survived being shot by police were charged with a crime, such as resisting arrest. But often, the charges were later dropped – a red flag for us that the basis for the shooting was questionable. Civil actions also were a key source of information. In some cases, the families of individuals shot by police had sued the depart- ment. The suits often were dismissed, but some Prince George’s County Police Chief John S. Farrell bows his head and hold hands with community leaders attorneys in these cases, through discovery, outside Jordan Baptist Church in Capitol Heights, Md. Prayers were part of a rally to celebrate what the leaders had acquired internal police documents about say are positive changes being made by the police department to improve relations with the community.

16 THE IRE JOURNAL FEATURES Dudley M. Brooks The Washington Post Washington The Brooks M. Dudley

Charles Grant, brother of Kendall Grant, who was killed across the street from the family home by a Prince George’s County police officer. the shootings and the disciplinary records of down to the scratched-out mistakes. step-by-step retelling of the event – including the the officers involved. These documents were An unlikely source for information was the teen’s plea for officers to shoot her. usually not part of the courthouse files, but Maryland Worker’s Compensation Commission. attorneys in many cases were willing to share In the course of scouting for leads, we compared Finding the norm them with the Post. a payroll database of Prince George’s police Beyond the shootings, we also investigated These records were indispensable. They officers against a database of more than 600,000 other deaths in police custody. Police again refused gave us insight into internal police workings, compensation claims. Dozens of officers had to identify the cases, but we had found more than the department’s laissez-faire attitude toward filed claims contending they suffered from 10, and suspected there were others. problem officers, and helped to fill in gaps “post-traumatic stress disorder” as the result of Mining worker compensation records, we about individual shootings and broader patterns. shooting someone. The wealth of paperwork came across a claim from an officer who said he Through these records we found that officers helped confirm the officers involved and the had suffered emotional stress after a prisoner died involved in shootings often did not submit times, dates and places of shootings, but more in his handcuffs. The claim did not identify the statements to department investigators about importantly led us to statements from the officers prisoner, but it noted the date of the man’s death. the case for weeks or even months. Sometimes involved. For example, five officers who shot Scanning court probate records for deaths that statements given by separate officers involved and killed a 16-year-old girl who suffered panic occurred on that date, we found the name of the in one shooting were identical, word for word – attacks all filed claims. In the records was a CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 × THE WEB The Post series and its supporting material can be found at: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/metro/md/princegeorges/government/police/shootings. The chart showing comparative shooting rates of all 50 agencies can be found at: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/specials/pgshoot/shootstats.htm

MARCH/APRIL 2002 17 FEATURES

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17 dead man. He was the brother of the officer who had handcuffed him. This, we learned, was part of the reason police concealed the death from the public. But the department had gone further to keep it secret: Police never notified the state’s attorney who is supposed to review cases for potential criminal charges. After initial reporting on the 122 shootings and the 12 in-custody deaths was complete, we Post Washington The Lutzky Michael winnowed cases to those that we intended to write about. There were more than 50 officers directly involved in cases in which we were focusing, and we wanted to speak with them all. Police officials rejected all our requests to interview individual officers. Therefore, we wrote a letter to each officer outlining our specific questions, made phone calls, and visited some at home. A few said they wanted to talk off-the-record, but had been told by department commanders not to. In the end, only a few spoke on the record. Winona Randall with her son, who was unarmed and shot eight times by Prince George’s County police There were many troubling cases to write entering her home. about, but we had broader questions about Prince George’s police. Were they an anomaly or were purposes, we found FBI computer records on Tough to question they the norm? How did the department’s rate fatal police shootings over-counted, under- The rankings, I should stress, are only of shootings stack up when compared to other, counted and failed to include entire agencies, indicators to look deeper within a depart- large metropolitan police forces? The Post in such as Miami-Dade County. In only a handful of ment. Academics and experts cautioned that 1998 examined shootings by D.C. police, and the 50 cities were the FBI numbers dead on. a high rate of shootings is a red flag, and after surveying 25 of the largest city departments, As we surveyed, we also reported the numbers not necessarily an indictment. A city with found that per capita, its shooting rate outpaced that would serve as yardsticks for comparison. 300 fatal police shootings might be high in the rest. To put Prince George’s gunplay into Criminologists with whom we consulted empha- number, but if they all were the end result of context nationally, we expanded upon that sized that there was no single perfect measure- someone pointing a gun at a cop, it’s tough groundwork (with essential guidance from other ment, and it was best to consider as many to question. In Prince George’s, when we Post reporters and editors). We broadened the factors as possible for as many years as possible. looked at individual shootings we found survey to include police agencies in the 50 In the end, we decided to measure rates by problems layered upon problems. largest city and county jurisdictions (on average population, sworn personnel, violent crimes Like any other large project, we were for decade), and polled for additional years. This reported, murders, arrests for violent crimes, buried in a flurry of last-minute reporting was an entirely separate track of reporting. and all arrests. Numbers for each jurisdiction and editing. Fact checking took weeks. We began with written, detailed requests for each of the 11 years were culled from the Ultimately, gleaned from the more than for information about all shootings from each census, FBI’s uniform crime reports, state police 500 interviews and thousands of pages of department, followed by telephone calls and agencies and from crime analysis sections in documents, were more stories and materials interviews. The level of cooperation varied dra- individual departments. Again, we vetted the than space. Much of this we put on the Web. matically from agency to agency. Some resisted, sources of information against one another and There, we published extra stories, copies others boxed up internal affairs records and other sources, such as DOJ publications. of internal police files we obtained, tapes shipped them to us. In the end, we documented All of our findings, which we tracked and of 911 calls that led to fatal shootings, and more than 2,100 fatal shootings by police from computed in databases, were averaged over the aggregate shooting data and rankings for 1990 through 2000, vetting them through news decade, to allow for missing years of information all 50 agencies. reports, interviews, state police organizations or particularly violent or peaceful periods within In the series’ aftermath, the FBI opened and other sources. a jurisdiction. Ultimately, Prince George’s was investigations into many of the shootings. It cannot be emphasized enough that direct No. 1 for fatal shootings per officer and No. 1 The county executive’s office announced reporting on each individual department is the when measured by all arrests. When measured numerous reforms. And, the Post won most only way to obtain accurate information on per 100,000 residents, the county was No. 5, of its lawsuit for police records – although police shootings. There is no single, reliable with the District remaining No. 1. Compared county attorneys have appealed the ruling. authority that tracks the issue. Though the FBI to all other agencies, however, Prince George’s asks departments to voluntarily report “police ranked highest across the board when the six David Fallis is a staff writer on the metro justified homicides” to the agency for statistical measures were considered collectively. investigative team at The Washington Post.

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tion and Naturalization Service placed the girl in a permanent INS ABUSES foster home and found relatives or more appropriate shelter for the others. Series exposes corruption, Four months later, Rich Read acted on a tip that INS agents at Portland International Airport were rejecting arriving Japanese ineptitude and racism passengers on visa technicalities. Read tracked down victims, including a Chinese businesswoman who was strip-searched and By Brent Walth and Rich Read jailed. He reported that the German wife of a U.S. citizen was The Oregonian deported after the INS tore her away from her breastfeeding child. Readers voiced outrage. An Asian news service dubbed our er fellow inmates called her “the girl who cries.” city “Deportland.” The 15-year-old Chinese girl spent eight months living The local INS director stepped down. with violent offenders in Portland’s juvenile jail in 1999, More tips came in from around the country, describing similar even when she had the right to walk free. abuses elsewhere. Sullivan and Read, sensing a bigger story, asked The U.S. government had granted her asylum. Two months later, Kim Christensen and Brent Walth to join in. however, the Immigration and Naturalization Service still kept her CONTINUED ON PAGE 22 locked up. Julie Sullivan wrote a story for The Oregonian about her plight and that of five other jailed teen asylum-seekers. Within six days, the U.S. Immigra- TheOregonian Michael Lloyd Michael

20 THE IRE JOURNAL Angel Avila, 15, called ‘The Cherub’ in the Los Angeles juvenile jail, is a native of Honduras, a survivor of Hurricane Mitch, and an INS detainee. C O V E R S T O R Y

workplace today. But official records about these workers can be very INVISIBLE hard to find. And family and friends may be unwilling to talk. Here are some suggestions for investigative reporters of where to look and how you might tell the story of immigrant workers exploited LABOR and killed in your community: • Look at the number of immigrant deaths. In states with large immigrant Immigrants exploited, populations – such as Florida, Texas, New York and California – fatal on-the-job injuries often disproportionately involve immigrants. endangered in the workplace By last year, workplace deaths among Hispanics had jumped 53 percent since 1992, and more than doubled in several job categories By Thomas Maier such as construction day laborers. The most accurate survey of Newsday these deaths is taken by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which collects information from federal, state and local sources, such as hen five immigrant workers fell to their death in October police, hospitals and medical examiners. The overall survey of U.S. in a New York City scaffolding collapse, the root causes workplace deaths can be found at www.bls.gov and a detailed analysis for this disaster were quite familiar to Newsday readers. of immigrant deaths in your area can be requested from BLS’s Census Only three months earlier, a Newsday series about the exploitation of Occupational Fatalities office in Washington, D.C. Bear in mind to America’s immigrant workers showed that New York suffers the that BLS does not release any names of these victims. (Newsday filed nation’s highest rate of immigrants killed on the job, and that more an extensive FOIA appeal for these names and lost.) than 870 immigrant deaths around the nation during the late 1990s The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration were never investigated by the government. (OSHA) does keep a database with the names of those killed in Immigrant workers are the invisible labor force in America’s fatal occupational injuries that the agency investigates. In most economy. Often performing jobs nobody else wants, usually for jurisdictions, however, OSHA only investigates a fraction of all low pay, they are killed on construction crews, shot for cash as worker deaths. Immigrants who are killed are usually among the most late-night store clerks, and crushed, impaled or likely to be missed and never reviewed by the agency. Nationally, our electrocuted while working as landscapers. At a review found at least 874 immigrant worker deaths during a six-year time when U.S. workplace deaths are generally period that were never examined by OSHA’s safety investigators, declining, immigrant workers – many of them here including 202 fatalities in New York state. illegally – are being killed on the job in ever greater By analyzing this data, reporters can quickly get an idea of how numbers, especially the new wave of undocumented often immigrant deaths are being missed and in what industries these workers from Latin America and Asia. workers are most likely to die. This will give you the broad outline Written in narrative form, the first day of the for your story, but the most gripping aspect will probably be found in five-part Newsday series examined this growing the lives and deaths of the workers themselves. national problem through the lives of two young • Tell the stories of undocumented workers killed on the job. Even men – both illegal immigrants from El Salvador the names of victims can be misleading. In 1998, Newsday printed – who died at a Long Island garbage plant. In a short item about a “Filodelfo Moran, age 21,” who was killed in a other parts of the series, the newspaper showed Long Island garbage recycling plant. When another garbage picker how government agencies have failed to enforce was killed at the same plant less than two years later, our newspaper laws that would protect the health and safety of repeated “Filodelfo Moran” as the name for the first victim, just immigrants, and to provide timely compensation as the police press release stated. Only one problem: this wasn’t for victims and their families. the victim’s real name. A careful check of documents, and later interviews with relatives, A tough story showed the victim was actually an undocumented worker named For journalists with tighter deadlines and fewer Fredi Canales, who at age 16 got the job at the dangerous garbage resources, the task of “documenting the undocu- plant and died days after his 17th birthday. OSHA’s database still mented” – telling the story of this exploitation identified him as “Filodelfo Moran,” but it was local surrogate’s court of immigrant workers – can be quite difficult. documents, which the family filed to receive a death benefit, that Newsday’s 10-month project relied on hundreds of revealed his true name as well as the local address of his relatives. interviews and government documents, computer- Thus began a journey that eventually took us to the mountains assisted reporting, and in-depth international of San Salvador where we interviewed and photographed Fredi’s reporting from El Salvador to expose one of the mother and father, who told us the dramatic story of his illegal most blatant health and safety abuses in America’s CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

MARCH/APRIL 2002 21 Angel Avila, 15, called ‘The Cherub’ in the Los Angeles juvenile jail, is a native of Honduras, a survivor of Hurricane Mitch, and an INS detainee. C O V E R S T O R Y

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20 problem: The INS cannot reconcile its Working with our editor Amanda dual missions. Is it a service agency, Bennett, we launched a national inves- The laws often break up families. dedicated to helping immigrants? Or is tigation of the INS. One change made imprisonment mandatory it a law enforcement agency, cracking down for thousands of immigrants who formerly on illegal aliens? Harsh measures could have posted bond while their deportation In November 2001, the Bush Administration Our series didn’t tackle immigration policy cases were pending. proposed a key reform that struck at the heart itself, but looked at how the agency responsible Today, they’re jailed indefinitely, sometimes of the problems we had discovered: splitting for protecting the nation’s borders treated for years. The law took away the power of the agency in two, separating enforcement foreign visitors, immigrants and refugees. federal judges to order the INS to release people from services. Four months later, in December 2000, improperly jailed. And it proposed doing away with the decen- The Oregonian published our six-part series, The law also eliminated due-process rights tralized fiefdoms that allowed local district “Liberty’s Heavy Hand,” which exposed cor- and barred many immigrants from the United directors to operate with little accountability ruption, ineptitude and racism in the agency States for as long as 10 years over problems and great inconsistency. that guards America’s borders. they previously could have settled for a fee. We want to share the lessons we learned Among the harshest provisions of the 1996 INS abuses investigating the agency in hopes other reporters law is one that allows the government to The INS has received its share of criticism can better understand the INS. reach back in time and use crimes that can be after the terrorist attacks, and the Bush admin- We also want to note how those lessons decades old and of a minor nature as grounds istration has responded to the criticism by relate to the significant changes with the INS for deportation. since our series ran. The Bush Administration The way the INS carries out the law is Resource Center has proposed sweeping reforms of the INS, troublesome. The agency keeps about 20,000 and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have put the people a day in jail. You don’t have to live in a border town INS’s role as a front-line security agency under But where? When Sullivan first asked that to find a good immigration story. Tip- closer scrutiny. question of the INS, the agency couldn’t say. sheets from the IRE Resource Center can First, here’s what our reporting found. Of the 128 FOIA requests we filed, she sent 39 provide guidelines to finding good stories. In 1996 Congress passed and President to local INS offices for information on jails that Visit www.ire.org/resourcecenter/ or call Clinton signed two “reform” laws that imposed INS headquarters couldn’t provide. 573-882-3364. harsh measures against some immigrants. We found the INS kept its detainees in a secretive and poorly monitored network of • The Oregonian reporters advise following state prisons and county jails where many are up on cases of split families, expedited subject to abuse. The INS often loses track of removal, asylum seekers, detention, retro- them and sends them from jail to jail – often far activity. Plus, look into the A-files – the from their families and lawyers. key record of an individual’s dealing with The INS bungles many immigration cases, the INS (requires permission from the with grave results, even for U.S. citizens. individual). Find sources ranging from Christensen found one citizen who languished immigration attorneys to local jails and in INS detention for six weeks, forgotten, until a visiting nun helped him prove his citizenship. prisons. Also included: a hefty source list Walth found the INS deported a Chicago man for both local and national stories. to Mexico within hours of stopping him at Brent Walth, Richard Read, Julie Sullivan, O’Hare International Airport, without giving Kim Christensen, Tipsheet No. 1438 him a chance to prove his citizenship, as the • Documents, Web sites and other sources law requires. helpful for reporters investigating immi- We found corruption, too. In the Portland office, one agent stole fees paid by immigrants gration courts. to feed her gambling habit. The Portland Lisa Getter, Tipsheet No. 1436. office also tolerated racism and sexism and • Seven trends in immigration that any the long-held practice of INS officers hiring reporter can tackle including deportation prostitutes when they went out of town on for minor crimes, deportations for old business. Meanwhile, INS ranks have included convictions, lifers, deportation of people smugglers, drug dealers, rapists and murder- ers, agents who extort payments or sex from with citizenship claims, inadequate review, immigrants in exchange for staying in the illegal re-entry, the illegal immigrants in United States. jail but not deported. Besides shaking up the local office, the Lise Olsen, Tipsheet No. 1437 series shed light on a deep-rooted national

22 THE IRE JOURNAL C O V E R S T O R Y

their own actions, whether through innocent mistakes, by intentionally overstaying their visas, or after run-ins with the law. These complex cases often provide an accurate picture of how people get caught in the INS machinery. • INS secrecy is nothing new. After the Sept. 11 attacks, many journalists have learned about the INS’ secrecy doubletalk: The agency on Motoya Nakamura The Oregonian The Nakamura Motoya one hand talks of protecting its detainees “privacy,” while on the other it denies those same people civil rights. The secrecy protects the INS, not the other way around. • Federal court records can help pierce the secrecy. Many detainees seek relief from federal judges. The records helped Walth when INS officials claimed – untruthfully – one long-term detainee was a felon waiting for deportation. Using court records, he learned that the detainee was a Sri Lankan asylum seeker unnecessarily jailed for nearly four years. • The best sources came from outside the INS: immigration lawyers; ethnic and immigrant groups; local consulates; local companies that rely on foreign workers; national human rights and immigration advocacy organizations; local port officials; local law enforcement agencies; county jail officials; and religious and aid organizations, which help immigrants settle in the U.S. • We found U.S. Department of Justice records invaluable, including those from the Office of Inspector General and the INS’s own Office of Internal Audit, which investigates wrongdoing. • Congressional records laid bare long-standing problems and the twisted path to reform: U.S. General Accounting Office reports; transcriptions of floor debates; congressional hearing testimony; and reports accompanying legislation and budget bills. Alex Gonzalez holds a picture of his father Luis kissing Alex’s hand. Alex was 6 weeks old when Luis had Even post-Sept. 11, the most compelling to leave the United States for Mexico. stories may still be about those who ask for nothing more than the right to live here, only cracking down on international students and by were too fearful to talk, even after their cases to be caught up in the INS web. increasing INS power to secure the border. with the INS had been settled. About these cases, U.S. Rep. Janice Scha- But many lessons we learned pre-Sept. 11 • Once you find someone willing to talk to you, kowsky, D-Ill., put it best when she told us, still hold true: ask to see their “A-File” – the “A” stands for “The INS is like an onion. The more you peel • Finding victims of INS abuses takes persis- alien – the key record of their dealing with it away, the more you cry.” tence, creativity and patience. The INS instills the INS. The INS won’t release it without the fear in so many people that finding someone person’s permission. If the person dealing Brent Walth is a senior reporter at The Orego- willing to go on the record can be extremely with the INS has an attorney, the lawyer can nian and a member of the newspaper’s investi- difficult. Their lives, families and jobs are often help. gative team. Rich Read, winner of the 1999 at stake. For every case we wrote about, we • Not every case is “perfect.” Many immigrants Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting, is The Oregonian’s senior writer for international knew of many more in which people involved run into trouble with the INS because of affairs.

MARCH/APRIL 2002 23 C O V E R S T O R Y

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21 crossing of the border and how he took the

dangerous job on Long Island to earn money for Newsday their impoverished family. Putting a human face on such a problem can heighten the story’s impact with the public. “We know the enormous human cost imposed by Moises Saman Moises occupational illness and injury – all we need to do is ask the family of workers like Fredi Canales,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, in citing the series at a recent Senate hearing. “There has to be more attention to immigrants, because they are our most vulnerable workers.” Finding documents on undocumented workers who were killed on the job can be extraordinarily difficult. In effect, you feel like a missing person’s bureau for workers whom many experts say Immigrants at work in the H&R Leather factory in Manhattan where a deadly fire took place. are “invisible” and “disposable” in our society. can help make your case, but most readers Hispanic and Asian immigrant support groups will be drawn to tragic human stories of hope, Resources can be good sources to provide the names of suffering and abuse – the experience of so many • The overall survey of U.S. workplace deaths victims in serious workplace accidents, and so immigrants who come to America. can be found at the Bureau of Labor Statistics can immigration lawyers or those specializing in Unlike immigrants from previous eras, a whole (www.bls.gov) and a detailed analysis of immi- workers’ compensation cases. generation of immigrants today have been called grant deaths in your area can be requested A Freedom of Information request to local “illegals,” starting their new life in America under from BLS’s Census of Occupational Fatalities police and medical examiners also can lead to such a dubious cloud. There are many causes and important case studies illustrating the health reasons for this condition that must be explained to office in Washington, D.C. and safety problems facing immigrants in your the reader. But only the details of these immigrants’ • The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Admin- community. lives, told in story form, can help make these istration (www.osha.gov) keeps a database with • Use narrative storytelling. Numbers and statistics people “visible” and understandable on a human the names of those killed in fatal occupational level, especially those who may be oblivious injuries that the agency investigates. to the person pruning their trees or pumping • Hispanic and Asian immigrant support groups their gas. can be good sources to provide the names Today’s conditions for immigrants create a of victims in serious workplace accidents. whole new set of extraordinary questions for One group very involved with Mexican immi- reporters: What is it like to be smuggled into this grant workers is Asociación Tepeyac (www. country and how did you raise the money needed for the smuggling fees? How did you get the phony tepeyac.org). documents that you showed for work? When you • Immigration lawyers or those specializing got hurt, why didn’t you or your employer report in workers’ compensation cases can be very it to OSHA? Why did your employer not put your good sources, including the ACLU’s Immi- name on the company’s official books when you grants’ Rights Project (www.aclu.org/issues/ worked 100-hour weeks on the job? Why did you immigrant/hmir.html). fear being deported if you complained about health • You can check with your area’s U.S. Immigra- and safety conditions in your workplace? tion and Naturalization Service office and ask • Track government failures. There are few govern- for the database of employers caught hiring ment obstacles to stop sweatshop owners from undocumented workers. The INS Web site is hiring illegal immigrants and exploiting them in unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. www.ins.gov. You can check with your area’s U.S. Immigra- • When immigrants face unlawful actions on tion and Naturalization Service office and ask the job, the National Labor Relations Board for the database of employers caught hiring may also get involved. Decisions and some undocumented workers. In New York, as in most documents can be found at www.nlrb.gov, places, it’s a rare occurrence that employers but you should also call your region’s NLRB get caught hiring illegal immigrants, and usu- office. ally they face only small fines. But this list

24 THE IRE JOURNAL C O V E R S T O R Y

can give you a starting point for treatment of undocumented workers in identifying sweatshops and trouble- America is one of the most shameful some employers. The INS Web site is aspects of a modern workplace. With www.ins.gov. Newsday the backlash against some immigrants When immigrants face unlawful in the wake of the World Trade Center actions on the job, the National Labor disaster, these problems may only get Relations Board may also get involved. worse.

For instance, undocumented workers Saman Moises But how immigrants are treated who complain about exposure on the coming into this country may help job to toxic chemicals or attempt to determine what type of citizens they, unionize, can suddenly find themselves and their children, will become. And being harassed by employers. Some by using various tools of interviewing, immigrants have even been threatened document searching and computer with deportation. These types of labor analysis, you can tell their story in your abuses can be spelled out in detail by community. looking at NLRB cases and using the These tragedies are far more pro- testimony and documents to show what’s Maria Audina Moran touches the grave of her dead son Fredi Canales, buried in found when they are personal, with the happening to undocumented workers. the cemetery in Concepcion de Oriente, El Salvador. The young man died in a job-related accident at the Omni Waste Management plant in New York. kind of truths as only the re-telling of Decisions and some documents can these young lives can reveal. be found at www.nlrb.gov, but you but each year hundreds lose their lives performing should also call your region’s NLRB office. very dangerous tasks. Thomas Maier, a longtime investigative reporter Since the mid-1990s, more than 5,000 immi- for Newsday, is the author of “Dr. Spock: An Workplace shame grant workers have been killed in U.S. workplaces, American Life” (Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1998) Today’s immigrants have helped fuel Ameri- though newspapers tend to take little note of these and is currently at work on a book about the ca’s robust economy with cheap labor, experts say, deaths as they occur. The shabby and often risky Kennedys for Basic Books.

MARCH/APRIL 2002 25 C O V E R S T O R Y

through a “good-ol’-boy” system of management U.S. CUSTOMS that is perpetuating a culture of reprisal and cronyism. More than people cross the borders Among the Customs Service practices exposed in the series were the following: By Bill Conroy • Customs management has a policy of shredding records used in disciplinary actions in order to San Antonio Business Journal keep those documents away from union officials – specifically the National Treasury Employees he blockbuster movie “The Matrix” stories exploring a pattern of alleged mismanage- Union. The records being shredded are called includes a pivotal scene in which the ment and corruption within the federal agency, “briefing papers,” according to legal documents lead character, Neo, is given a choice including allegations that extend back to drug obtained by the Business Journal. After a story between waking up in his bed and continuing trafficking nearly a decade ago. appeared in the Business Journal about the on with his life as it has always been, or staying In addition to reviewing stacks of legal filings, practice, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office in “Wonderland” and seeing just “how deep the internal Customs documents, congressional of Inspector General launched an investigation rabbit hole goes.” testimony and other public records for the stories, into the document-shredding allegation. That scene goes a long way in explaining my I interviewed dozens of individuals, many of them • A Customs inspector supervisor in Laredo, experience in digging into the “wonderland” that whistleblowers – including current and former Texas, created false drug seizure reports in the is the U.S. Customs Service. I’ve spent the past Customs supervisors, inspectors and investigative Treasury Enforcement Communications System year falling into the “rabbit hole” and still don’t agents. The series touched on corruption issues using the names and Social Security numbers of know how deep it goes, but I can no longer pretend affecting the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, Arizona Customs inspectors – making the reports read as that the rabbit hole doesn’t exist. and California. though the inspectors had written the narratives U.S. Customs has a vast charge in safeguarding Sources within Customs came out of the themselves. The supervisor allegedly falsified as the integrity of the U.S. border with respect to woodwork as I dug into this project, with each many as 16 drug seizure records for the purpose commerce and national security. story leading to new contacts that helped drive of embellishing her own record. In the wake The federal agency is responsible for enforcing the next story. I had to deal with many sources of the Business Journal’s story on the falsified hundreds of laws and international agreements. within the agency on background or a not-for- reports, a federal judge asked the U.S. Attorney’s It collects more than $22 billion annually from attribution basis. They feared, I felt legitimately, Office to review the allegations. import duties and other fees, and processes some retaliation if exposed. Still, in those cases, I 480 million land, air and sea passengers each secured documentation or additional sourcing Border terror year. to support any allegations. On more than one Information gained through the Customs With those facts in mind, and in light of occasion, that documentation showed up in my investigation was suddenly cast into a new light in disturbing disclosures made to the San Antonio mailbox anonymously. the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Business Journal by numerous sources within The allegations raised by these whistleblowers Specifically, follow-up stories examined Customs, I decided to move forward on a series of boil down to an assertion that Customs is operated inspection policies related to truck and rail cargo traffic along the U.S.-Mexico border, which Customs sources say are in serious need of review. Several former and current Customs agents and inspectors said the same tactics used by drug smugglers to compromise U.S. borders could also be employed by terrorists. They backed up their claims by providing me with docu- mentation, including statements submitted to Congress that had not been entered into the official record as well as letters written to federal agencies. From: “U.S. Customs Badge of Dishonor” Dishonor” of Badge Customs “U.S. From: The rail cargo investigation, in particular, appeared to have hit a nerve. Two former Customs special agents as well as several other sources within the federal agency, told the Business Journal that rail cars rigged as “giant pipebombs” could easily be shipped from Mexico into the states. Once here, those railcars (such as pressur- ized tanker cars that carry an array of hazardous U.S. Customs agent Darlene Fitzgerald-Catalan, right, and a railroad hazardous materials specialist, hoist substances) could be moved into every nook and narcotics from a railroad tanker car using a crane. About 8,000 pounds of marijuana and 34 kilos of cocaine were removed from the car in April 1998 in Colton, Calif. cranny of our nation’s rail system via telephone

26 THE IRE JOURNAL C O V E R S T O R Y or the Internet and then detonated remotely. “These [rail] cars in general carry a plethora of WORKING TO hazardous material,” said former federal agent Darlene Fitzgerald-Catalan. “If one or more is MAINTAIN TRUST blown up in a rail yard, it could start a devastating By Bill Conroy chain reaction.” If you’re interested in exploring the world of the U.S. Customs Service world, Wormhole in time consider: Finally, as part of the investigative series, the Business Journal took a look at alleged corruption • Sources will be wary. Given the sensi- within Customs along the U.S.-Mexico border tive nature of the disclosures made to in the early 1990s. the newspaper by Customs whistleblow- Public records were used to examine the ers, many asked that their identities activities of a multi-agency federal task force, be protected, fearing that they would called Firestorm, charged with investigating law otherwise face retaliation. Don’t make enforcement corruption in Arizona. At one point, such guarantees lightly, but be prepared the task force had 19 cases open on alleged law to work with some sources on this basis enforcement corruption, one of which involved the if you want to keep the story rolling. suspicious death of a former Customs supervisor • Asking for written proof. Because many stationed along the border. of the sources the Business Journal But according to whistleblowers who furnished worked with in the Customs series are the Business Journal with documents and insider themselves investigators (government sourcing, the task force was disbanded suddenly agents), they normally have access to in late 1990 and its investigations were allegedly a wealth of documentation related to derailed and swept under the rug of history. their charges. Ask for this information. Still, the public record trail on this story was In most cases, they will provide it – or extensive. And thanks to a former Customs agent, the documents will somehow show up the pertinent documents were assembled and in your mailbox. sent off to me. I dug in and began tapping into the network of sources I had developed from • Maintaining trust. The big lesson learned prior stories. in pursuing the series is that sources The documents showed that the Firestorm task seeking to combat corruption within force had unearthed evidence linking two Customs federal agencies such as Customs are inspectors working along the Arizona border to willing to work with the media, if trust drug traffickers. The documents also contained is established. These sources, many of allegations that a supervisor with the Department whom put their lives on the line daily in of Justice’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) doing their jobs, often find that efforts – suspected of having ties to drug traffickers to address corruption through agency – worked to derail the investigation into the channels only serve to turn the gov- inspector’s activities. ernment against them. Many view the I was able to verify that the Customs inspectors Fourth Estate as being, truly, a last and OIG supervisor, who is now with a different remaining check on governmental abuse agency, still work for the federal government, of power. which gives the story a real hook into the present. For a glimpse through the Customs The Business Journal story also attempts, through current sourcing, to shed more light on the looking glass, check out the following mysterious 1990 death of the former Customs Web links: former Customs inspector supervisor in Douglas, Ariz. John Carman’s Web site www.customs The story of the U.S. Customs Service is corruption.com; and Darlene Fitzgerald- ongoing. To come anywhere near a conclusion, Catalan’s self- published book, “U.S. more journalists will have to jump into the rabbit Customs Badge of Dishonor,” published hole. March 2001 and available online through www.iuniverse.com. To read the Busi- Bill Conroy is the editor of the San Antonio Busi- ness Journal, which is one of 41 weekly business ness Journal’s Customs series, go to: newspapers published by Charlotte, N.C.-based http://sanantonio.bcentral.com. American City Business Journals.

MARCH/APRIL 2002 27 FEATURES

investigative unit last summer, the Tarrant County medical examiner changed his finding LIVES in that case from “accidental” to “homicide.” Deadly errors It was a dirty secret among the medical staff AT RISK working at the county hospital. They knew needless mistakes and staffing shortages were Emergency room lapses, allowing patients to die inside the emergency apparent cover-ups revealed room. Some doctors and nurses had even begun to covertly copy patients’ charts, not wanting a record of the errors and staffing problems to disappear. But no one wanted to talk publicly – until a young physician contacted the station’s investigative unit in August 2000. BY VALERI WILLIAMS Woody O’Keefe suspiciously died from a morphine overdose while under a Slowly, over a two-month period, producer WFAA - DALLAS doctor’s care. Meridith Schucker and I corroborated the doctor’s story through dozens of interviews with ixty-four-year-old Lettie McGhee lay on the ventilator, McGhee continued to breathe other emergency room staff. As more doctors the gurney hovering somewhere between on her own and have a pulse for another hour. and nurses grew to trust us, they allowed the life and death. McGhee’s body was fail- Then, Grotti returned. I-team to review their copied files. Among Sing, but her spirit seemed strong. Near Again, according to witnesses and an admis- our findings: the ailing grandmother stood an emergency sion by the physician herself, Grotti placed her • Patients with serious medical conditions such room worker ready with the electric paddles thumb over the endo-tracheal tube protruding as heart attacks, burns and broken bones were to shock her heart again into beating. Over the from McGhee’s mouth. This was the tube left sitting in the ER waiting room for up to past 45 minutes, this process had been repeated that once connected the patient to the ventila- 12 hours. The national average for patients half a dozen times. McGhee was on a ventilator, tor; it was McGhee’s only way to get air. waiting to be seen for any medical problem in but she was alive due to the efforts of the ER Eventually, Grotti told the Texas Board of an emergency room is two hours. doctor, nurse and technician who had worked Medical Examiners that she “occluded the • One woman died in the ER because two heart to save her. It was the day after Christmas, ETT for approximately one minute.” In a monitors failed to work, a drip pump couldn’t written affidavit, the doctor stated she did be found, and the crash cart wasn’t stocked this because the “ET [tube] was prolonging properly. the agony for the family and the [emergency • The ER’s former chief doctor had 22 com- department] staff who wanted the patient plaints filed against him with the Texas Board

WFAA - Dallas WFAA moved somewhere else, there was no room.” of Medical Examiners within an 18-month But McGhee’s family claims what the period. Three physicians told WFAA that doctor told them was entirely different. Wanda egregious medical errors by Dr. Nat Baumer Ragster, McGhee’s daughter, says Grotti came resulted in the deaths of three patients. (One into the waiting room explaining that her female patient allegedly died from a simple mother was “brain dead” and urged the family aspirin overdose on Baumer’s first day at not to try any life-saving measures. Ragster work.) Yet, hospital officials refused to dismiss was unaware that no neurological tests had Baumer. The ER chief eventually quit. In been done to come up with this diagnosis and May, the Texas Board of Medical Examiners that her mother had already been disconnected severely restricted Baumer’s medical license. Dr. David Cooke has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against from life support without the family’s permis- • To make the ER staff account for every penny the hospital and hospital officials. sion – a violation of state law. Ragster also spent on patient supplies, hospital officials and McGhee’s family anxiously waited at John did not know that Grotti had placed her thumb installed a computerized vending machine. Peter Smith Hospital, the county hospital to the over her mother’s airway tube until she learned Nurses said it could take up to 15 minutes poor of Fort Worth. of it during WFAA’s ongoing investigation of to enter codes that would make the machine While the family was pacing and praying, the hospital’s emergency room. dispense the most basic of supplies, like IV Dr. Lydia Grotti, an ICU physician at JPS, was Lettie McGhee’s death is now one of eight drip lines. Meanwhile, staff had to stand by called down to the ER to admit McGhee into questionable deaths at John Peter Smith being and helplessly watch as patients went into intensive care. Instead, Grotti declared McGhee reviewed by Fort Worth police and a special cardiac arrest or suffered further trauma. dead, removed her from the ventilator and left. prosecutor. In another case, a male patient of Initially, the hospital’s CEO attempted to Still, according to witnesses and documents Grotti’s died from an overdose of morphine. dismiss our reports as the whining of a few in the case, McGhee didn’t die. Even without Following a series of reports by the TV station’s unhappy people in the ER. But the magnitude

28 THE IRE JOURNAL FEATURES of the problem became very clear when 26 against him. Cooke has filed a whistleblower Still, it was not until three days after emergency room nurses sat down for an inter- lawsuit against the hospital and hospital WFAA’s broadcast in June that Grotti was view with me. Many of them admitted that officials. suspended from the hospital, and she remains they had made medical mistakes with patients • Dr. Kevin Wacasey was an ER physician we on paid suspension. In a letter to the station, because staffing shortages kept them running asked to review the medical file of Woody Grotti’s criminal defense attorney claims an from bed to bed. O’Keefe, the patient who suspiciously died unidentified medical expert retained by his from a morphine overdose while under Dr. firm has concluded that McGhee was already High price paid Grotti’s care. In addition to Wacasey, we dead before the doctor blocked her airway Our first report on John Peter Smith Hospital had two other doctors and an independent tube. was broadcast in October 2000; nearly a dozen forensic pathologist review O’Keefe’s file Dr. Grotti has refused comment on the more reports have followed. before broadcasting the story. None of the Woody O’Keefe case. We obtained thousands of pages of docu- physicians who participated in the review had As a result of our investigation, the hospi- ments the old-fashioned way – through inside any connection to O’Keefe’s medical care; tal’s CEO was forced into early retirement in sources. Occasionally, the unit used the Internet the forensic pathologist has no affiliation with December, a vice president over ER nurses to track addresses of patients or to do side JPS hospital. Wacasey and the others came was reassigned, and county commissioners research on a physician’s credentials. But we to the same conclusion that O’Keefe’s death demanded the replacement of half of the attribute much of the success of our investiga- was at least suspicious and appeared to be a hospital board members. tion to the brave people who work at the case of euthanasia. In addition, our initial series of reports hospital. Despite some of the horrifying stories Wacasey felt so strongly about O’Keefe’s convinced the Texas Department of Health to of gross mismanagement and incompetence, death that he felt obligated to contact Fort conduct its own investigation into emergency there are many doctors and nurses who care Worth police in June. The day after doing room deaths. Besides the unnecessary demise greatly for the under-privileged clientele they so, Wacasey was fired and escorted from the of two patients uncovered by us, state investi- serve. However, speaking out has extracted a emergency room by two armed guards. The gators discovered two more deaths; all four high price from some of them: doctors’ group at JPS, which fired Wacasey, occurred within a six-month period in the • Dr. David Cooke tried to get the hospital’s denies that the reporting of Grotti played any ER. peer review committee to do something about role in his termination. Officials could not The JPS doctors’ group attempted to get Dr. Nat Baumer, chairman of the emergency explain why Wacasey was removed from hos- Baumer a part-time position at the Tarrant department. When hospital administrators pital grounds by the armed guards. Wacasey County jail treating inmates, but when the refused to take any action, Cooke filed a formal has since filed a lawsuit against the hospital sheriff found out about the plan, he nixed complaint with the Texas Board of Medical and doctors’ group. the idea. Examiners. Since filing the complaint, Cooke Kevin Wacasey, the fired ER doctor, has has been subjected to more than a dozen Personnel replaced gone back to school – this time to get a law review hearings by hospital management. The hospital’s peer review committee, degree. He intends to specialize in malpractice Each time, Cooke has been cleared. In a I discovered, had questioned Grotti about law against managed care entities. 30-year career at hospitals all over the world, McGhee’s death, but eventually officials the well-liked physician has never had one did nothing. O’Keefe’s death followed two Valeri Williams is an investigative reporter for lawsuit or formal medical complaint filed months later. WFAA in Dallas.

MARCH/APRIL 2002 29 FEATURES hen the Internal Revenue Service issued rules in 1999 forcing non- CLOSER LOOK profit organizations to provide W copies of their tax returns to the public, journalists who cover charities suddenly AT 990S REVEALS found themselves with access to a wealth of data previously only slightly more difficult to get their HIDDEN COSTS hands on than active police investigation files. Before the new rules took effect, nonprofits were required only to make copies available IN NONPROFIT to anyone who showed up at their offices to read them, which was fine unless the charity FUNDRAISING in which you were interested happened to be 1,000 miles away. BY HARVY LIPMAN Now nonprofit groups must turn over their THE CHRONICLE OF PHILANTHROPY Forms 990 within 30 days to anyone who requests them. Most organizations’ forms are also easily filed by the largest nonprofits for tax year 1996 nonprofit organization, which handled all the accessible through the Internet site run by (the most recent year for which computerized fundraising. Another common reason covered Guidestar (www.guidestar.org), a nonprofit group data were available at the time – data through the foundations formed by state universities. dedicated to making information about charities tax year 1998 are now available). We reasoned The schools themselves, which as government more accessible. that any charitable organization raising $500,000 entities don’t file 990s, do the fundraising, while But as The Chronicle of Philanthropy has or more in gifts during the year must have spent the foundations distribute the money from the discovered after years of rummaging through something to raise those funds. gifts. That way, the foundations legitimately are those IRS forms, reporters should be cautious reporting zero in the fund-raising column. about relying on the information nonprofits Zero fundraising But a large number simply didn’t bother to provide. Keep in mind that the IRS definition of what report what they’d spent on fundraising. In almost Janet Greenlee, a professor who teaches must be reported as fundraising is pretty broad. every case, the organizations’ audited financial nonprofit accounting at a major university, told It includes, of course, the cost of hiring outside statements did list the expenses, which is an us that one of her research papers discovered soliciting firms and the salary paid any full-time important lesson for anyone covering nonprofits: that many nonprofits with sizeable incomes were fund-raisers on staff. But it also covers the portion Don’t settle for the 990. Ask for the audited reporting spending nothing on fundraising. That’s of any paid staff time devoted to fund-raising financial statements. Charities are under no legal when we decided to do a computer analysis of (including writing grants seeking money from requirement to provide those, but you should be the fund-raising expenses reported on the 990s foundations); an allocated portion of the cost of suspicious if they refuse. Ask them what they producing a newsletter if that have to hide, and suggest that it might be worth publication includes requests doing a story just on the fact that a public charity for funds; the cost of publi- receiving a tax break underwritten by every cizing fund-raising events; taxpayer won’t release its basic financial data. and the production of any To be honest, we’ve rarely had a problem getting fund-raising manuals or other any major nonprofit group to provide us with its materials. audited financial statement. The data we needed was We also obtained databases from three states obtainable from the Urban – California, New York and Ohio – which require Institute’s National Center for all professional fund-raisers and the charities Charitable Statistics in Wash- that use them to register. We found dozens of ington, which has CD-ROM examples of charities hiring solicitors and telling sets of basic data filed by the the IRS they spent nothing on fundraising. nation’s nonprofits. Of the The Zoological Society of Cincinnati, for nearly 5,000 organizations instance, spent at least $500,000 on fundraising, reporting at least $500,000 in including the hiring of a telemarketing company gifts for that year, more than that conducted a multi-year soliciting campaign. 25 percent reported zero fund- Trinity University in San Antonio spent $2.5 raising expenses. In about million on fund-raising over three years. Both half the cases, there were reported zero fund-raising expenses to the IRS. good explanations. The most common was that the charity Nonprofit cover-up University of Dayton’s Janet Greenlee found that nearly 15 percent of Pennsylvania charities hiring professional solicitors reported no fund-raising costs on their reporting no fund-raising costs Some of the explanations were priceless: charity tax forms. was affiliated with another One group, in a classic case of Orwellian

30 THE IRE JOURNAL FEATURES newspeak, told us that “to put fundraising in the column called fundraising would be FOI records statute means very little. It is only misleading.” Its argument was that since all the when an agency is punished for breaking the organization does is raise money to distribute CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15 law that the law will be followed. to other charities, fundraising was its purpose records. States awarding fees and costs to States that do not specifically punish an or mission, and spending on a charity’s primary petitioners that only substantially prevail agency for non-compliance with the statute mission is supposed to be reported on the will be stronger than those that require the received no points. One point was awarded “program services” line of Form 990. The petitioner to completely prevail in order to to states with statutes that provide for either IRS was not amused. When we passed this get fees and costs. criminal or civil sanctions in the event there explanation on to a top revenue service official, State statutes failing to provide that a is a violation of the law. The BGA gave two he pointed out that the organization’s mission prevailing petitioner could collect fees and points for statutes that provided for both is to distribute money, not raise it, and that costs received no points. Allowing recovery of criminal and civil sanctions, and three points everything it spent on fundraising should be fees and costs in the event the agency acted in for states that provide for either criminal or listed as fund-raising expenses. bad faith in denying the record scored states civil sanctions and increase those sanctions The Arizona Community Foundation one point. States allowing an award of attorney for multiple offenses. States with statutes that insisted it does no fundraising, and then sent fees and costs at the judge’s discretion when the provide for both criminal and civil sanctions us a copy of its newsletter, including a half- petitioner prevails received two points. States and increase those sanctions for multiple page solicitation explaining how wealthy receiving three points also leave awarding offenses received four points. Finally, states individuals could structure bequests to the fees and costs to the discretion of the judge; that allowed for termination of an employee foundation. however, the petitioner must only substantially who violates the statute received five points. A large number of charities pointed the prevail before a judge may consider the award- Take a look at the numbers for your state, finger at their outside accounting firms, saying ing of attorney fees and costs. Four points were and then for other states, and you’ll come to they filled out the tax forms. Most of the major given to states that require an award of fees one inescapable conclusion: state FOI laws firms refused to comment, and those that did and costs to a prevailing petitioner. Finally, are in desperate need of reform. From the insisted their policies require precise reporting states requiring an award to petitioners who moment a citizen walks into the state agency of all fund-raising costs. only substantially prevail received five points to make a records request to the final denial of In the end, though, why should anybody because they provide the most protection to access by a state court, each step in the process care what nonprofits report to the IRS? They petitioners from the outset. is, in most states, a stacked deck in favor of don’t have to pay any taxes regardless, and governmental secrecy. The BGA report might the law gives them broad latitude in how they Sanctions provision simply confirm what you already knew about handle their finances. That’s precisely why The final criterion the BGA examined in FOI in your state, but it should serve as a regulators, journalists and the giving public assessing the strength of each state’s open catalyst for change. should be so outraged by this behavior. As record act was sanctions. The BGA looked several state regulatory officials pointed out, to see whether there were provisions in the Charles Davis is executive director of the Freedom if a nonprofit will cover up its fund-raising statutes that levied penalties against an agency of Information Center, an assistant professor at costs on a form filed with the IRS, what else found by a court to be in violation of the the Missouri School of Journalism and a member are they being deceptive about? statute. Without a sanctions provision, a public of IRE’s First Amendment Committee. Why would nonprofits go to such lengths to hide their fund-raising costs? Two reasons: Legal corner 1) watchdog groups in this area rate charities dispute resolution and the societal interest in based on the percentage of their revenue they CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9 promoting early settlement of disputes. During spend on their programs, and if you can make processes work is the cloak of confidentiality that early settlement discussions, either with or it seem like as little as possible is going toward surround them. So it’s a real question of policy. without a mediator, the parties need some space fund-raising, you come out looking better to I think the courts and legislatures are willing to talk frankly about their issues and concerns potential donors; and 2) there are virtually no to sacrifice some access in favor of another without fear of seeing it in the paper the next penalties for hiding fund-raising costs, because important societal goal, which is the settlement day or having it come back to haunt them in a the IRS doesn’t even look at them. of disputes. But where one of the parties is a subsequent trial. But there are harder questions. The results of our investigation should be governmental entity, the arguments are greatest If one of the parties is a public agency, an open an object lesson for journalists and the general that the media should be permitted access. discussion may need to take place for the public’s public. Examine the tax forms of nonprofit benefit. And even harder questions arise when organizations with care, and apply common Do you have an opinion as to there is a great public interest in the outcome sense. whether it is better policy to allow of a private dispute, such as the Firestone access to ADR or not? cases. There’s a great public interest in what Harvy Lipman is the director of special projects I think that, as a matter of policy, the courts happened, but there’s also a great public interest at The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a national have struck the correct balance between these in settlement that may outweigh the interest biweekly that covers the nonprofit world. two important competing interests – access to in access.

MARCH/APRIL 2002 31 FEATURES

union representatives dressed in dark suits as PASSING “‘union mafia” and “gangsters.” Exempt behavior With copies of the notes in hand, we hired a NOTES court-certified handwriting expert who verified they were written by the judge and his clerk. Judge, clerk make ethnic slurs; I also consulted several legal experts, including Prof. Stephen Gillers of New York University, investigation prompts reprimand about the ethical issues raised by the notes. Gillers said they were a clear violation of ethics codes. BY KAREN DORN STEELE I interviewed two dozen lawyers who had THE (SPOKANE) SPOKESMAN-REVIEW appeared before McDonald, a millionaire Yakima lawyer and agri-businessman elevated to the hen a federal judge is accused complaint against McDonald first piqued my federal bench in 1985. At first, few were willing of wrongdoing, reporters are curiosity. It accused the judge of retaliating to be named, fearing retribution. But I was able at a disadvantage in a system against his court reporter for disclosing his to match some of the notes to specific trials, W that protects judges from outside habit of writing notes in court that disparaged aided by Blankenship, who had filed the notes scrutiny. prosecutors, defendants and attorneys. with the docket sheets of the trials where they I learned that lesson in a difficult investiga- I wanted to know why McDonald’s note- were written. tion over three years that led to a rare public writing conduct was never investigated by When I contacted lawyers who appeared in reprimand last fall of U.S. District Judge Alan other judges, when the practice appeared to those trials, they were shocked by the notes and McDonald of Yakima for unethical conduct. violate judicial conduct codes. The codes say provided on-the-record interviews. I also learned that the power of the press is judges should “act at all times in a manner that A veteran Spokane attorney also agreed to sometimes what’s needed to prompt the judiciary promotes public confidence in the integrity and go on the record. to investigate its own. impartiality” of the courts. During a 1990 trial before McDonald, William A brief paragraph in a 1997 civil rights McDonald’s accuser was Kathryn Blanken- Powell and his co-counsel had noticed a blizzard ship. She was fired after testifying – unwill- of note-passing, and had retrieved some of the ingly and under subpoena – about McDonald’s notes from a wastebasket during a court recess. behavior in a 1994 wrongful termination case for Powell gave me copies. another court employee in Yakima. Blankenship “Of all the federal judges in our region, said her rights had been trampled by a federal McDonald is by far the worst-behaved, and court system that judges others daily, but is deaf nobody is monitoring this behavior,” Powell said

The Spokesman-Review The to its own internal problems. in an interview.

For two years after her complaint was filed, Nobody outside the judiciary has the leverage Blankenship and her attorney rebuffed my to do so. While federal judges must disclose their interview requests, fearing it would prejudice estimated net worth each year, they are exempt their case. I persisted, and finally was allowed from most public disclosure laws, including the to examine dozens of hand- Freedom of Information Act. Federal judges also Torsten Kjellstrand Torsten written notes – penned by are immediately notified of any press inquiries, McDonald and his in-court ostensibly for security reasons. clerk – that Blankenship When I contacted the Administrative Office of had kept for years. the U.S. Courts in Washington, D.C., to determine In one note, McDonald whether any complaints had been filed against wrote “Ah is im-po-tent!” McDonald, my inquiry was immediately reported Kathryn Blankenship, while a black man was tes- to McDonald and court officials in Spokane. former federal court reporter in Yakima. tifying in a trial in San The next step was to interview McDonald. Diego. For weeks, his lawyer rebuffed my requests, In a Yakima trial with saying the judge would not cooperate. Through Hispanic defendants and his lawyer, the U.S. District Court’s head clerk attorneys, McDonald’s clerk in Spokane also refused to discuss why the notes Pam Posada wrote, “It were never reviewed by court administrators after smells like oil in here – too Blankenship disclosed their existence in 1994. many ‘Greasers.’” In a final effort, I took the notes to the chief In another Yakima case, judge in Spokane, arguing that their contents made Alan McDonald, senior judge. McDonald referred to labor CONTINUED ON PAGE 36 ×

32 THE IRE JOURNAL FEATURES

Competition and Public Interest Issues,” a USING THE lengthy report that explored the economic ramifications of such a deal. Many times the GAO is asked by a congres- GAO WEB SITE sional member to look into issues of concern, such as food stamp fraud, or a weapons system that is over budget and behind schedule. Those BY CAROLYN EDDS reports can provide not only valuable background THE IRE JOURNAL information, but some insight into areas of concern for congressional members intent on fter the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the president to prepare an annual budget of protecting their own interests. one place journalists turned to for the federal government and made the GAO By clicking on the “Status of Open Recom- information was the U.S. General independent of the executive branch. The GAO’s mendations” link on the GAO Reports page, AAccounting Office (GAO) Web site. mission is to investigate how federal money is links can be found to search the GAO database The site contained reports on the federal govern- spent. Legislation since 1921 has expanded or on the status of open recommendations. These ment in the areas of airport security, anthrax and clarified some of the activities of the GAO. status reports can be searched by congressional biological warfare. But keep in mind that this The primary source of information on the requester or subject matter. Web site also is a good source of information GAO Web site is the “GAO Reports” page. One feature that might be of interest to for a variety of other stories related to federal Reports and testimony dating back to 1975 journalists is a subscription to daily electronic issues. are available through a searchable interface in mail alerts. These alerts can be about “Today’s The GAO, created by the Budget and this section. Reports are searchable by report Reports and Testimony” or “Comptroller General Accounting Act in 1921, keeps an eye on federal number, date range, topic or keyword. The Decisions.” These alerts might provide story government money. It was created to improve advanced search page allows searches by one ideas or alert a reporter that a report on a topic of federal financial management after World War or more exact phrase, name or group of words. interest has been added to the Web site. I. The Budget and Accounting Act required Up to three sets of words or phrases can be Journalists can subscribe to these alerts in combined in one search and the the “For the Press” section. This section also search can be limited by date includes a link to a page of recent headlines range. The Web site is updated of stories mentioning the GAO with links to daily with reports, usually within the reports mentioned in the story. In addition, 24 hours after they have been this section includes a link to a top 10 list publicly released. of significant GAO work issued the previous As topics of interest develop, month, with links to the reports. The November the GAO provides links that top 10 list includes a report titled “Olympic search the report database for Games: Costs to Plan and Stage the Games in these topics. For example, the the United States.” This section also includes GAO Reports page currently a phone number for the GAO Office of Public provides links to documents on Affairs. homeland security, terrorism Speaking of phone numbers, in the “About and airport security. the GAO” section, a PDF file containing the By clicking on the “Reports GAO telephone directory can be downloaded. and Testimony” link on the GAO This is a large file, as the telephone directory Reports page, a list of reports is 65 pages. released in the past two days When searching for a story idea or assigning can be viewed with the option a story that is related to a federal issue, do not of listing reports released in the forget about the GAO Web site. In particular, past week or month. Or, you run a search of the GAO Reports database. You can look at “correspondence” might be surprised what you will find. which, for example, on Jan. 7 included “The Proposed Alli- Carolyn Edds is the Eugene S. Pulliam research ance Between American Airlines director for IRE. She directs the IRE Resource and British Airways Raises Center and helps maintain Web resources.

Home page: www.gao.gov For the Press: www.gao.gov/pressmain.html Subscribe to GAO e-mail alerts: www.gao.gov/subscrib.html

MARCH/APRIL 2002 33 FEATURES

By following that lead, we learned that state POLICE NETWORK officials were indeed reviewing the case. On a whim, I asked how many other com- plaints were under investigation. The answer: about a dozen. ABUSED But officials wouldn’t say more without an FOI request. That attitude, coupled with several Information used for callers who said they, too, had been abused by police who accessed their records, prompted private gains, vendettas me to FOI every alleged LEIN abuse dating back five years. BY M. L. ELRICK My excitement at receiving a bulky response DETROIT FREE PRESS faded somewhat when I learned it contained little more than meeting minutes from an olice throughout Michigan have been abusers provided unequal justice for victims obscure state board that reviews LEIN viola- using a law enforcement database to and violators alike. Specifically, what cost tions. Still, although there were many redac- P stalk women, threaten motorists and one cop his job could result in a reprimand in tions, it didn’t take long to see that there were settle scores. another jurisdiction. dozens of allegations of police throughout In a two-part series last summer, the Free I received more than 100 calls and e-mails, Michigan misusing the system. Press detailed how abusers subverted the Law several providing leads for follow-ups. There The meeting minutes contained virtually Enforcement Information Network (LEIN) and was not one complaint. Civil libertarians and nothing on victims, but the cases were unique used it as a personal search engine for home conspiracy-minded privacy advocates alike enough that we were able to pursue police addresses, for driving records and for criminal hailed the series. It was posted on numerous reports or get police officials to identify LEIN files of love interests, colleagues, bosses or Web sites and was the third most popular story abusers. In a fair number of cases, police reports rivals. One practice was reportedly so common in the five-year history of the Free Press’ included some information that helped us track it became known simply as “running a plate Web site. down victims. for a date.” And, state lawmakers, who were considering Once we located victims, either through In addition, we profiled individual cases to tightening rules on LEIN use before our series information in reports, by Autotrak or show how the state’s mechanism for disciplining ran, were expected to resume deliberations. www.switchboard.com, we had to convince Among those who will vote on the legislation them to talk. Most, feeling betrayed by police, is a state representative whose husband was were reluctant. Some hung up after I identified a victim of an alleged LEIN abuse we wrote myself and explained why I was calling. But about. (We think the legislation has a pretty many cooperated after I said we were trying to good shot.) expose any wrongdoing. The meeting minute notes, while short on Misusing the system details, were helpful in other ways. Although Our story began when we received an the amount and quality of information changed anonymous tip about a police captain whom over the years, it became clear that regulators we believed tracked down a female driver were struggling with how to handle LEIN through information from the secretary of violators. state’s office, which issues driver’s licenses And, midway through the five years I and car plates. This officer called the woman reviewed, the law regarding LEIN violations and berated her on her answering machine for changed. driving carelessly. This was exciting for two reasons: Some And while we had the captain’s name watershed case may have prompted the change, and wanted to publish it, we could not get and if lawmakers held hearings on the proposed his supervisor to confirm the name, only to change, they likely listened to testimony from acknowledge that he had disciplined one of victims or experts. his commanders. Still, we went with what Since legislative committees often require we had, and filed FOI requests for reports those who testify to sign in, this could provide us from police who were investigating in the with a trove of potential sources and anecdotes victim’s hometown at that time, hoping for beyond the scraps the state provided. If nothing more information. else, I figured the bill’s sponsor would have Still, our tipster urged us to dig deeper, and something to say on the subject. suggested we check to see if the captain was Unfortunately, it turned out the change was reported to the state agency that oversees LEIN. slipped into another bill during legislative

34 THE IRE JOURNAL FEATURES

negotiations and never received a hearing. But the state senator who wrote the change provided several salient observations for one of our stories.

Building a database Press Free Detroit One of my favorite IRE conference tips came from a panelist who recommended: “Kill

the experts.” Still, I wanted some authoritative Phillips Kent voices discussing what a problem LEIN abuse was. Yet the professors and researchers I contacted repeatedly told me we were the first to examine the problem. Fortunately, state officials who oversee LEIN tolerated rambling questions as I tried to figure out how the system worked. This was complicated because, over the five years we were looking into, the oversight changed. But understanding what happens when LEIN abuse is alleged, and how it is dealt with, required familiarity with the LEIN culture. The in-car computer that gives law enforcement officers access to the LEIN network. The name and information on the screen were fabricated for demonstration purposes. In Michigan, LEIN is overseen by the Criminal Justice Information Systems Policy proposed discipline. The committee’s only Interviews with Safety & Policy Committee Council. The council acts upon recommenda- recourse if they disagree with discipline is members supported this finding. tions made by its Safety & Policy Commit- to strip a department’s LEIN machine, which While trying to figure out how the system tee, a group of prosecutors, a judge and law no one wants. This was particularly telling. It worked and tracking down violators and enforcement and state officials. The committee showed that the state has virtually no resources victims, it became clear that note cards are asks local police to investigate reported cases for investigating alleged LEIN violations and swell for determining whether you’ve got a and report back their findings, along with any helped explain why discipline varied so widely. story, but hard to keep straight. Even though I’m a Mac guy, it didn’t take long to get the basics of Microsoft Access down on my Free Press PC. Building the database allowed me to organize the cases with useful fields such as the department where the abuse occurred,

Detroit Free Press Free Detroit details of the case, and severity of discipline. As I learned more about each case, I added detail to my database. Mostly, I jotted notes

Kent Phillips Kent on my printout of the spreadsheet. As often happens, some of my juiciest leads got wiped out by thorough reporting. Several cases that seemed outrageous based on the scant details I had turned out to be fairly mundane. Other cases outstripped my expectations. Getting the details of the cases I zeroed in on was both easier and as difficult as I expected. Some chiefs – and more than a few investigators – were cooperative in discussing cops they felt had disgraced the job. Others – even the apparent martinets who hammered violators – stonewalled and asked for FOIs they later denied. In some cases, other departments or state police had investigated and I was able to get A woman who was harassed by an Albion, Mich., police officer she met while filling out a police report. CONTINUED ON PAGE 36 ×

MARCH/APRIL 2002 35 FEATURES

Police network abuse Spokane Judge improper racial, ethnic and religious bias upon the federal judiciary.’’ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 35 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 32 In March, The Mexican-American Legal their reports. Even with redactions, there was it imperative to have McDonald’s response. Defense and Educational Fund of San Francisco usually enough information to connect me Chief Judge William Fremming Nielsen, filed a judicial misconduct complaint against with someone involved in the incident. In a few concerned with the court’s image and credibility, McDonald with the 9th Circuit. cases, prosecutors or the state attorney general agreed. He arranged for McDonald and his lawyer On Sept. 11, 2000, the nine-judge 9th Circuit had been called in and turned over police to be interviewed by me in his presence. Judicial Council issued a public reprimand of reports submitted by police investigators. On the evening of Jan. 10, 2000, armed federal McDonald. There was at least one helpful lawsuit. marshals waved Spokesman-Review City Editor The council said the judge wasn’t biased More than a few perpetrators also were eager Richard Wagoner and me through the basement against any ethnic or religious group, but said his to explain their actions, sometimes providing garage of Spokane’s federal building for an “offensive banter” created an appearance of bias insights that were useful beyond their specific interview that lasted more than two hours in and violated judicial conduct codes. case. Nielsen’s chambers. The council called his conduct “prejudicial In the interview, McDonald was combative. He to the effective administration of the business Fishing expeditions said the notes were private, were never intended of the courts.” Well into my reporting, I decided to revisit for the public, and were being misinterpreted. Ethicist Gillers said the public reprimand was one of the oldest cases involving LEIN abuses, He said he is simply “earthier’’ than other federal extremely rare, but necessary. but one with the fewest details. I was able judges because of his rural Yakima roots, and “It’s very important that they did this because to get the name of the lieutenant involved, he wouldn’t apologize for what he and his clerk the conduct was unacceptable, and it’s important who was suspended for a week without pay wrote. for the credibility of the federal courts to say so for running a criminal history check on his We obtained his response to every note, explicitly,” Gillers said. ex-wife’s husband through LEIN. including the “ah is im-po-tent’’ note in a trial In a statement the day after the reprimand More digging revealed that while the with a black plaintiff. McDonald said he wasn’t was made public, McDonald said he was glad the lieutenant checked the husband’s driving mocking the man, but was referring to himself. council concluded he isn’t a racist. He said he record, a friendly FBI agent ran the criminal We published our story Jan. 30, 2000. hadn’t intended to create a credibility problem history check on the new husband. And, based In a sidebar, we also examined the court’s for the court. on what they found, the lieutenant tried to self-monitoring of internal problems, which Washington State Bar Association President gain custody of his young son. This and other some critics (including a former Republican U.S. Jan Eric Peterson said the reprimand sent two marital stresses contributed to the ex-wife’s attorney in Spokane) assailed as a good-old-boy important messages – that federal judges are decision to divorce her new husband. system. We used judicial complaint data from accountable, and that disparaging remarks that The ex-wife, a former prosecutor, provided the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to appear to reflect bias “are a serious matter.” some powerful observations about the con- show that judges are almost never sanctioned Hispanic groups in Yakima and San Francisco, nection between romance and LEIN abuse. for misconduct. however, criticized the reprimand, saying it didn’t She revealed that the chief at the time of the go far enough. violation wanted to impose stricter discipline, Public reacts Blankenship eventually lost her case when but relented after the lieutenant fought a Public reaction to the stories was strong and an appellate court ruled that judicial branch lengthy suspension. immediate. workers have no right to bring a civil rights case As with many investigative stories, some The next day, editorials in The Seattle Times against their employers. She appealed to the of our most resourceful reporting didn’t make and Seattle Post-Intelligencer condemned McDon- U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to take her the cut. Because we had so many cases, we ald’s behavior and asked for a full judicial inquest. case last year. decided before I wrote the story that we would The Yakima Herald-Republic, McDonald’s McDonald, 73, is on semi-retired “senior use only our strongest one or two anecdotes in hometown newspaper, called for his resignation. status.” Federal law allows him to work part time each section to illustrate the different motives Two days later, Judge Nielsen referred the while drawing his full $145,100 salary for life. and methods for abusing LEIN. controversy to the 9th Circuit for a judicial One of the more surprising (and troubling) misconduct investigation. Karen Dorn Steele is an investigative and envi- aspects of the story was the number of times In a rare criticism of a sitting judge, the ronmental reporter for The Spokesman-Review. LEIN was used for political purposes. Allega- 22,000-member Washington State Bar Association She has won numerous awards for her reporting, including the George Polk Award and the Gerald tions ranged from candidates identifying called on the 9th Circuit to make the results of its Loeb Award for ‘’Wasteland,’’ a 1994 investiga- supporters of their foes by checking license investigation public. (Other options open to the tion into squandered taxpayer money at the plates of cars bearing bumper stickers to council would have been to reprimand the judge Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the nation’s largest candidates running FBI background checks in in private, or to take no action.) nuclear waste cleanup site. Her stories on fishing expeditions for dirt. The Democratic caucus in the U.S. House of Judge McDonald’s judicial misconduct won a Representatives also weighed in. Led by Rep. citation for excellence in legal reporting from the M.L. Elrick covers Detroit government and politics John Conyers of Michigan, the caucus condemned 22,000-member Washington State Bar Association for the Detroit Free Press. McDonald for “bringing the appearance of last year.

36 THE IRE JOURNAL FEATURES

Snow job bland one-liners amid literally hundreds of other be a thick U.S. Forest Service public file on similarly uninformative one-liners that paid for the controversial land exchange that allowed CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9 a multitude of projects across the country. They billionaire oilman Earl Holding to swap some there was no market for residential development. were scattered through dozens of individual remote land in northern Utah for 1,378 prime Subsequently, two roads, funded by the federal laws enacted over several years, and there was acres of Forest Service land adjoining his government, were built that enhanced the value no choice other than to comb through each to Snowbasin Ski resort north of Salt Lake City. of the land owned by Myers and his partners. find them. Utah’s Olympic boosters claimed the land The challenge for us was determining just how As time-consuming as it is to find individual was needed to host two Olympic signature much the land had appreciated after the federal giveaways, the process goes much faster today, events, the downhill and giant slalom. In truth, investment. thanks to the Internet. Like all federal legislation, Holding had long coveted the federal land so The property had been subdivided and appropriation bills are available online through he could turn Snowbasin into a full-fledged individual lots and tracts sold off to new owners the Library of Congress’s Web server, Thomas upscale resort. over several years. In 1990, the land Myers (http://thomas.loc.gov). In addition to being able While basic details of the congressionally acquired comprised fewer than a dozen parcels. to methodically go through any bill, you can mandated land swap had previously received But by 2000, as a result of all the land activity, search using specific terms, such as Utah or Salt media coverage, mostly in Utah, we looked the number of parcels had ballooned to more Lake or Olympics. at the issue from an angle that had attracted than 400. In a District of Columbia appropriations bill little attention: what would taxpayers receive To arrive at a value, our colleague Laura for the year 2000 (one that provided hundreds in trade. And the Forest Service file, for all Karmatz pored over Summit County plat maps to of appropriations for various Washington social its bureaucratic boilerplate, yielded some real trace the metamorphosis of the original acreage. programs from foster care to elementary educa- finds. She then pulled deeds, obtained hundreds of tion) we came across a curious item – $590,000 One was the appraisal report. As you might individual property assessments and inputted the to a University of Utah weather forecasting unit expect, the single most valuable tract was the data. Ultimately we were able to determine that “for support to the Winter Olympics.” Weather one Holding wanted – the ruggedly beautiful the value of the land for tax purposes had soared forecasting? Don’t federal taxpayers already pay Forest Service parcel with stunning views of from $3 million in 1990 to $48 million 10 years for the National Weather Service? the Wasatch range near Snowbasin. As for the later, a sixteenfold increase. Indeed they do, but that was not good enough land he was trading, much of it was in remote That one statistic – $48 million – is a reminder for the folks in Utah, who wanted a custom- northern Utah, and the appraiser, in deadpan of how much work often is involved for just one tailored service as well. As we dug deeper, we prose, made it clear what taxpayers were getting line in an 8,000-word story. discovered that Olympic boosters had wrung $1 in trade. million out of Congress for additional weather Holding was trading land that included a The treasure hunt forecasting services – all “to improve the “former stone quarry” and some parcels so To see exactly what the federal govern- understanding of winter weather in complex isolated they had “no physical access.” Thus, ment was funding, we turned to one of the terrain.” There is nothing wrong, of course, with in exchange for land within easy reach of most more underutilized sources of information in Utah wanting a gold-plated weather forecasting Utahans, the federal government had swapped Washington – appropriation bills. system. But should everyone else in the country for land that most Utahans would never see. The If there is a more boring form of research pay for it? government had, as one environmentalist put it, than combing through this kind of legislation, we traded land “that could be used by people for don’t want to know about it. At least in tax law, The agency files land that can be used by animals.” amid the mind-numbing jargon that Congress The Internet has revolutionized the transmit- Any one of the themes touched on above – uses to camouflage handouts to campaign tal and retrieval of information, but some of the the wealthy developers Myers and Holding, and contributors, you occasionally come upon some best reporting techniques haven’t changed. A the huge cost to federal taxpayers – alone would wonderful passages. lesson that we learned long ago is as valid today have made for a good story. But we intentionally To this day one of our favorites is on Page as ever: Always go to the file. shied away from the temptation to zero in on 545 of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Following a By this we mean go to the record and review any one of them, no matter how interesting. In section outlawing some outrageous tax shelters the primary documents. If it’s a court case, go our view, the scope of the Olympic excess and in the Virgin Islands, taxwriters secretly inserted to the court file. If it’s a regulatory proceeding, greed could only be conveyed by bringing all a paragraph that exempted a wealthy California go to the government agency’s case file. If it’s the elements together in one story. developer because he headed “one or more a congressional hearing, go to the transcript corporations which were formed in Delaware on and read, not only the prepared statements Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, editors-at- or about March 6, 1981, and which have owned of witnesses, but also the colloquy between large for Time Inc., have worked as an investigative one or more office buildings in St. Thomas, lawmakers and witnesses, those off-the-cuff team since 1971. Their work has tackled issues United States Virgin Islands, for at least five give-and-take remarks where so much rich ranging from nuclear waste to the dismantling of America’s middle class. Barlett and Steele have years before enactment of this Act.” detail often emerges. received virtually every major national journalism You don’t usually find richly detailed entries Whatever the subject, there is usually a award, including two Pulitzer Prizes, two National like that in an appropriation bill. The Olympic written file about it in some government agency. Magazine Awards and four IRE awards. handouts were woven into spending bills as For us, the mother lode this time turned out to

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Send your check to IRE: Call 573-882-3364 Visit our Web site at 138 Neff Annex with your VISA or www.ire.org Missouri School of Journalism MasterCard for online ordering or Columbia, Mo. 65211 order form downloads I n Fort Worth, they call it the so as well. We ask each of our newspapers especially in leadership roles, at our news- “refrigerator door prize.” That is, the to “give back” materially to the commu- papers is among them. No Knight Ridder more Star-Telegram readers find reason nities that support them – and they do. editor is less than very sensitive to the to pin items from the paper to the We ask our newsrooms to make public importance of minority representation refrigerator door, the better its editors service journalism projects a high priority. on the pages of our papers. At The feel they are reaching their community. And we remind our editors to remind Miami Herald, with el Nuevo Herald, Certainly it’s one measure. We their staffs that saying “yes” to news at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, with can think of many others. In no special the community finds important – like La Estrella, and at the San Jose Mercury order: (a) involvement by management chamber of commerce awards and Little News, with Nuevo Mundo and Viet and employees in community activities, League scores – is a good way to make the Mercury, that sensitivity has flowered everything from a halfway house to a newspaper important to the community. into whole new publications. United Way campaign (b) public ser- Thus the “refrigerator door prize.” Every October, when we present vice journalism (c) hiring practices that Most of the time, when community 15 James K. Batten Knight Ridder reflect the diversity of the community participation is called for, our approach Excellence Awards to employees who in the newspaper’s staff, and editorial is low-key. A publisher becomes the excel in the disciplines important to practices that do the publishing a newspaper, same in its pages one of them recognizes (d) strong support in a community service and crisis (e) special one diversity. recognition for Every employees who day, when we make special think about commitments to their communities chairperson of the United Way content that matters most, we think (f) Kids Voting, literacy projects and Campaign. An information technology about public service. In 2001, public ser- the like. director sits on the board of the local vice projects ranged from the (Wilkes- At Knight Ridder, we regard all opera company. The “chicken dinner” Barre, Pa.) Times Leader’s series on of these as important. As critical as it news gets covered. favoritism and cronyism in county gov- is for the reporting of the news to be Sometimes, however, more is called ernment to the Detroit Free Press’ impartial, it is equally critical that the for. In 1992, after Hurricane Andrew investigation of dragnet-style police newspaper itself be part of the fabric devastated Dade County, corporate operations. It’s one reason that over of its community. That it care what executives helped launch Miami’s “We the past 15 years, we’ve won five of happens to a town, city or region in Will Rebuild” campaign – and two of the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medals for ways that people recognize as real ... them donated half their annual bonuses Meritorious Public Service. It’s not the by celebrating what’s good, by helping as seed money. Subsequent crises in refrigerator door, but it’s nice. to understand what isn’t, and by dem- other communities have prompted sim- onstrating – in deed as well as word – ilar – if less dramatic – interventions. that the well-being of the people who Like $25,000 to plant trees in Grand make possible the paper’s prosperity is Forks after the tornadoes last summer. But community involvement is more Tony Ridder its true noble purpose. Chairman and CEO Over the years, we have found a than gestures. It’s how you think about variety of ways to show this concern. the paper each day. We ask each of our publishers to take Every year, when we set our corpo- an active role in the community – and rate goals, we make sure that an increase Mary Jean Connors to encourage senior management to do in the number of women and minorities, Senior Vice President/Human Resources

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