CONTENTS
18 INEQUALITY IN SPORTS THE IRE JOURNAL Schools found to routinely flout – or be ignorant of – Title IX laws By Carl Prine TABLE OF CONTENTS Pittsburgh Tribune-Review NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 20 MEDICARE WEB SITE PROVIDES NURSING HOME DATA 4 Bob Greene retires, By Carolyn Edds but vision keeps working The IRE Journal By Brant Houston 22 – 29 ASSISTED LIVING 5 NEWS BRIEFS AND MEMBER NEWS POOR REGULATION 6 FAKE IDs Booming centers lack Tracking the market, sellers consistent standards, quality of phony driver’s licenses state to state By Jean Rimbach and Monsy Alvarado By Brent Walth The Hackensack (N.J.) Record The (Portland) Oregonian 10 SCHOOL FOOD GROWING CRISIS Don’t dismiss kids’ complaints Aging population points about school lunches so quickly out need for investigations By David Jackson By Mary Zahn Chicago Tribune Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 12 SILENCE BROKEN GROUP HOMES State employees found working for Newspaper helps win more openness, candidates while on public time end to secret death reviews By Dee J. Hall By Dave Altimari Wisconsin State Journal The Hartford Courant 14 MURKY WATERS Tipsters, experts instructive 30 JUSTICE DISMISSED in tracing airport pollution Data details judges’ rampant tossing of cases By Miles Moffeit and Gordon Dickson By Joe Ellis and Brian Collister Fort Worth Star-Telegram KMOL-San Antonio 17 NADER’S INVESTIGATIVE TECHNIQUE 31 FOI REPORT OFFERS REPORTING LESSONS Sun-Sentinel uses FOI-powered spotlight to find missing children By Steve Weinberg By Charles Davis The IRE Journal
32 MAPPING FORECASTS MANIPULATION ABOUT THE COVER OF VOTING DISTRICTS By James E. Wilkerson, Chuck Ayers Zula McMillon, at her Milwaukee and Matt Assad home, attributes living to age 98 The (Allentown, Pa.) Morning Call to the daily use of snuff and a beer with every dinner. Two home- 34 SPEEDWAY SORROW Team effort leads to insights care agencies pay McMillon’s on racing fatalities granddaughter to care for her. By Liz Chandler Cover story, pages 22-29 The Charlotte Observer Cover photo by 39 LEGAL CORNER Gagging the news: Courts limit media Dale Guldan, Milwaukee Journal reporting by silencing trial participants Sentinel By Rachel Matteo-Boehm and Roger Myers
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 3 THE IRE JOURNAL FROM THE IRE OFFICES VOLUME 25 NUMBER 6
DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS & EDITOR Bob Greene retires, Len Bruzzese
MANAGING EDITOR but vision keeps working Anita Bruzzese
ART DIRECTOR his month, the Press Club of Long Island chapter of SPJ will Wendy Gray give its Lifetime Achievement Award to longtime IRE leader Bob BRANT HOUSTON SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Greene, who retired this summer from Hofstra University and from Steve Weinberg hisT post on IRE’s endowment committee. The club will cite Greene’s distinguished investigative work at Newsday and his inspira- CONTRIBUTING LEGAL EDITOR tional teaching at universities, but we hope the club won’t miss the chance to recount Greene’s David Smallman dedication to IRE and his lasting impact on investigative reporting. EDITORIAL INTERN Greene, who has served as both chair and president of the board, played a critical role Gina Bramucci in getting IRE off the ground and rolling in the 1970s and 1980s, and then stayed deeply involved in the larger issues that came along. It was Greene who led a team of journalists in the Arizona Project, the series that inves- IRE tigated corruption in Arizona following the murder of IRE member Don Bolles. IRE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR The 1977 series – published nationwide despite opposition from some in the mainstream Brant Houston press – demonstrated that competing journalists could come together to help each other and share information for a larger cause. It also raised IRE’s profile and wrote an “insurance BOARD OF DIRECTORS policy” for U.S. journalists. th CHAIRMAN As Greene said in Phoenix in 1997 during the 20 anniversary of the series, the Arizona David Dietz, Bloomberg News Project sent a message to the enemies of a free press: If you kill one of us, you will get 40
PRESIDENT more of us on your story. Kill the 40 and you will get 400 more. Shawn McIntosh, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution But Greene did far more for IRE. He raised money to successfully fight the lawsuits that followed the stories, hit the road for 16 months to talk about IRE and the project and then VICE PRESIDENT he went on to raise money for the organization’s operations. David Boardman, The Seattle Times Greene also created the IRE contest for investigative work and pushed for a definition of TREASURER investigative reporting to clarify what we were about. And he pushed for IRE to be affiliated Duane Pohlman, WEWS-Cleveland with a university – as it is today with the Missouri School of Journalism. SECRETARY “In the lifetime of a large organization, such as IRE, its success depends on small and Edward DeLaney, Barnes and Thornburg large contributions every year,” says John Ullmann, IRE’s first full-time executive director. “However, spectacular contributions that keep the organization alive and flourishing can be Paul Adrian, KDFW-Dallas/Fort Worth numbered in only a handful. It is no exaggeration to say that there would be no IRE without Stephen K. Doig, Arizona State University Bob’s guidance, stature, ability, and dedication to the idea that the journalism world needed James V. Grimaldi, The Washington Post an organization that taught others investigative reporting.” Andy Hall, Wisconsin State Journal For many of us, Greene’s tips and talks on investigative reporting made all the difference Chris Heinbaugh, WFAA-Dallas/Fort Worth in our careers. His advice gave us guideposts for approaching the difficult and complex Dianna Hunt, Fort Worth Star-Telegram investigation and they do the same for today’s young journalists whom we teach. Stephen C. Miller, The New York Times It was Greene who spoke about the importance of figuring out what the “minimum” and Cheryl Phillips, The Seattle Times “maximum” stories could be before you got too far down the road on an investigation. He Mark J. Rochester, The Denver Post talked about doing “the sniff,” that is, a preliminary survey of what documents and sources Stuart Watson, WCNC-Charlotte there were for a story before you even began. Greene also stressed the importance of the chronology as an investigative tool and the The IRE Journal (ISSN0164-7016) is importance of “shoveling red meat” (enticing information) to an editor to maintain support published six times a year by Investiga- for an investigation. tive Reporters and Editors, Inc. 138 Neff Annex, Missouri School of Journalism, Sometimes irascible, but always colorful, passionate and caring, Greene has supported Columbia, MO 65211, 573-882-2042. IRE at every turn, even when he didn’t agree with a direction it was going. And he’s still E-mail: [email protected]. Subscriptions are there, still representing the IRE spirit of journalist helping journalist. $60 in the U.S., $70 for institutions and those outside the U.S. Periodical postage paid at After recently talking on the phone about IRE’s history, he added just before he hung up, Columbia, MO. Postmaster: Please send ad- “Now just call me if you need me. I’m always here to help.” dress changes to IRE. USPS #4516708 Brant Houston is executive director of IRE and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted © 2002 Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. Reporting. He can be reached through e-mail at [email protected] or by calling 573-882-2042.
4 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 5 I R E N E W S Annual CAR conference for the contest. MEMBER NEWS scheduled for Charlotte Entry forms can be downloaded at The Annual Computer-Assisted Reporting www.ire.org/contest and must be postmarked osemary Armao has been named proj- Conference sponsored by IRE and NICAR is by Jan. 13, 2003. R ects team leader at Florida’s Sun-Sentinel. scheduled for March 14-16. The conference will The former IRE board member and executive be held in Charlotte, N.C., and is being hosted by SDX supports additional director most recently served as managing The Charlotte Observer and NBC News. Watchdog Workshops editor of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Jeff The conference will feature panels by the best A series of Better Watchdog Workshops, Brody has moved from local news editor to in the business on every beat and topic, including co-sponsored by IRE and the Society for Pro- Census, education, local and state government, fessional Journalists, will continue throughout managing editor of The Sun in Bremerton, crime, freedom of information and transportation. the United States next year, thanks in part to a Wash. Jon Christensen, a freelance investi- Hands-on classes will be offered on spreadsheets, $40,000 grant from the SDX Foundation. gative reporter and science writer, was awarded database managers, mapping, statistics and the SDX, which provided $25,000 for work- a Knight Fellowship at Stanford University for latest in cutting-edge technology. In addition, the shops this year, awarded IRE $40,000 to help the 2002-2003 academic year. He is focusing on conference will include various exhibitors and fund eight workshops in 2003. Further support computer-software demonstrations. will be sought from local news organizations and evaluating environmental conservation proj- The conference will be held at The Westin associations. ects during his time at Stanford. Rose Ciotta, Charlotte, 601 South College St. For hotel “This money ensures that we can begin plan- a former member of the IRE board of directors, reservations, call 866-837-4148 and ask for the ning these workshops,” says Brant Houston, has been named computer-assisted reporting Investigative Reporters and Editors room block. executive director of IRE. editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Jeff Cohen Hotel reservations must be made by Feb. 14. The Better Watchdog Workshops teach jour- has been named editor of the Houston Chronicle. For more information, call IRE at 573-882- nalists how to do investigative and enterprise 2042. To register online, visit www.ire.org/ reporting while on a beat and emphasize the use Cohen was editor of the Times Union in Albany, training/charlotte. of freedom-of-information laws in the pursuit of N.Y. Mark Feldstein has joined George Wash- these stories. ington University as an associate professor with 2002 IRE Awards The workshops specifically serve journalists the School of Media and Public Affairs. Feldstein from small- to medium-sized news organizations now accepting entries has been a television investigative reporter for – from both print and broadcast. Training mate- IRE is now accepting entries for the 2002 IRE 20 years, 16 of which he spent in Washington Awards. The awards recognize outstanding inves- rials include IRE’s Beat Book series and SPJ’s as a correspondent for WUSA, CNN and NBC. tigative work in various categories. The top award Open Doors handbook for reporters, funded by given is the IRE Medal. In addition to recognizing the SDX Foundation. Pamela Hollie, former director of The Kip- the work itself, the contest also identifies methods Sites and dates for the workshops are deter- linger Program in Public Affairs Journalism at and techniques used in each story. Each entry is mined cooperatively. Some will be incorporated Ohio State University, has accepted a 2003 into SPJ regional conferences and other IRE filed in the IRE Resource Center so members can Fulbright award to teach at Charles University learn from the work of others. training activities. in Prague. She will teach two courses, one on The IRE Awards recognize investigative In most cases, workshops consist of one day reporting by print, broadcast and online media. of intensive instruction. In some cases, a second biodiversity planning and another on non- Categories include newspapers and television day of training is offered in computer-assisted profit management. Hollie hopes to work with stations. These awards are broken down by pub- reporting. Cities already scheduled: civil society organizations while in the Czech lication or station size. Other media categories Nov. 16 – Fort Lauderdale Republic. Paul Maryniak has been named include magazines, books, radio and online. Nov. 23 – Wichita metro editor at The Arizona Republic, where he The Tom Renner Award is given to the best Feb. 8, 2003 – Chicago had been East Valley bureau chief. James investigative reporting, whether a single story or Feb. 22, 2003 – Phoenix Osman is now on the investigative team at a lifetime body of work, in print, broadcast or March 8, 2003 – Storrs, Conn. book form, covering organized crime. The IRE March 22, 2003 – St. Petersburg KNXV in Phoenix. Andrew Pergam, formerly FOI Award honors an individual or organization March 28, 2003 – Minneapolis with WFSB in Hartford, Conn., is now reporting whose significant actions further open records or March 29, 2003 – Columbia, Mo. for Hartford’s WVIT. Wendy Saltzman has open government. A student award is given for April 5, 2003 – Cleveland moved to the investigative team at WKMG outstanding investigative reporting by a student April 5, 2003 – Atlanta in Orlando, Fla. She previously worked on in a college-affiliated newspaper, magazine or April 12, 2003 – Spokane investigations for WWMT in Kalamazoo, Mich. specialty publication, or broadcast work that has April 12, 2003 – Long Island been publicly reviewed, screened or aired. Former IRE and NICAR data analyst Mike The IRE Awards program works to avoid Sites and dates for the workshops are deter- CONTINUED ON PAGE 42 × conflicts of interest. Work that included a sig- mined cooperatively. For more information, Send Member News items to Len Bruzzese at nificant role by a member of the IRE Board of visit www.ire.org/training/betterwatchdog/ for [email protected] and include a phone number for Directors or an IRE contest judge is not eligible the latest additions and updates. verification.
4 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 5 FEATURES
Record reporting had uncovered, the underground enterprise needed substantial inside help. In the FAKE IDs months ahead, we proved the theory, discover- ing that DMV employees were involved at every Tracking the market, sellers step, charging fees of $50 to $500 for services and handsomely supplementing salaries as low
Carmine Galasso The Record The Galasso Carmine of phony driver’s licenses as $7.25 an hour. An assortment of fake IDs – from Social We learned to appreciate small victories Security cards to birth certificates BY JEAN RIMBACH – seen under black light at the Wayne, amid the unpleasantness. We were left waiting N.J., DMV office. AND MONSY ALVARADOF for informants in smoky bars or dark parking THE HACKENSACK (N.J.) RECORD lots and screamed at by DMV workers and their spouses. Once, two men who worked for a high- he man behind the wheel of the SUV was Persistence and patience have paid off for the level dealer tried to scare us away from our DMV joking with buddies on a side street in The Record’s ongoing series “Driving by Decep- stakeout by walking up on either side of our car, Newark. Half a block away, we pulled to tion.” The project has relied heavily on cultivat- then pausing and staring at us. One DMV worker the curb, cut the engine and watched. ing criminals and undocumented immigrants as we were watching called local police and claimed TFrom street sources, we knew the driver sources, observing the activities of DMV workers she thought one of us was trying to steal her car. was a big player in New Jersey’s black market around the state and – perhaps most important To smoke out brokers and the “middlemen” or in illegal driver’s licenses, a guy to go to if we – never taking no for an answer. “runners” who present papers to the DMV work- wanted to know about corrupt workers inside the ers, we spent time in gritty, inner-city immigrant state Division of Motor Vehicles. But he had been One detail at a time neighborhoods, and learned nicknames, cell impossible to pin down for an interview. Last September, a story by colleague Eliza- phone numbers, and the hangouts of people Countless times, we had driven through neigh- beth Llorente exposed a lucrative black market in known to work the license business. That one borhoods he frequented but failed to spot him. At licenses. Her three-month investigation revealed of us speaks fluent Spanish proved a huge asset: least 10 times, he had responded when we left our that illegal immigrants commonly pay $2,000 to Even people who could speak English relaxed cell phone numbers on his pager, but he always brokers who guide them through the process, when approached in their native tongue. denied helping illegal immigrants get licenses or sometimes right up to the windows at the DMV. We learned that brokers work with little slips he would set up a meeting and not show. The story showed how the scam was putting of paper, on which trusted compatriots have This time, when he pulled away from the dangerous drivers on New Jersey roads. But by written names, numbers, and beeper and cell curb 30 minutes later, so did we. We followed the time of publication, shortly after the Sept. 11 phone numbers. So we followed the cues – we him down a busy thoroughfare and paged him terrorist attacks, it had added punch: Most of the left slips of paper with a first name and a phone again. He was checking his pager when we pulled 19 hijackers had held U.S. driver’s licenses or number with the cook in a Peruvian restaurant alongside at the red light. We rolled down the side identification cards. and at a travel agency known to import fraudu- window and introduced ourselves. The next major piece of the project ran in lent documents. We did the same at bodegas and His eyes got big. He sighed and said, “Follow December, when we reported on the supply of the apartments of dealers and their relatives and me.” phony New Jersey birth certificates that fuels girlfriends. Five minutes later, in the parking lot of an the license business. But an explosive part of the Eventually calls started coming in on our cell abandoned restaurant, we had a key interview license story was still out there. phones, which we kept with us 24 hours a day. We for our story about DMV employees who take From the first story, reporters had heard rum- learned to jump when somebody agreed to meet, bribes to issue learner’s permits, falsify written blings that DMV workers were actively engaged whatever the hour. If an interview had to be by exams and road tests, and ignore obviously bogus in the scam. A broker who helped us buy fake birth phone, right then, we pulled to the shoulder of the identity documents. certificates repeatedly mentioned DMV workers highway to take notes. “There has always been corruption inside,” he who take bribes. But prying loose the evidence One winter night, coming back to the office told us. “Without corruption, this wouldn’t work.” was not going to be easy: The state police and from a particularly disappointing day, one of attorney general denied requests for records of our cell phones rang. It was a broker wanting to arrests of dealers or DMV workers, citing an know who we were and what we wanted – we had ongoing investigation. left a message at his parents’ home that day. He Other avenues were almost as barren. This agreed, out of curiosity, to meet at a bar at 10:30. corruption was not going to be found in public He grimaced at our questions and suggested we documents or revealed in exhaustive database talk outside rather than shout over the bar’s blar- searches. We gradually assembled the pieces ing TV. In our car, with the engine running for
Carmine Galasso The Record The Galasso Carmine by getting close to the criminals who ran the heat, we asked which DMV workers took money, black market and establishing trust one detail which agencies they worked in, and how much at a time. money they took. An extreme close-up of microdot printing along the Our theory was simple: To run as smoothly as “You sure you guys are reporters?” he asked, bottom of a Virginia birth certificate. What appears to be CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 × a thin line is actually a set of words visible under a loupe. it did, and handle the volume of illegal licenses
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6 we even overheard one man pointing not the first to demand ID. her out to another. Slowly, with one hand on the car door, he They left separately but met up began to spill names, descriptions, locations. He moments later on a bench outside a also shared tricks of his trade, such as hiding a nearby department. We had seen our bribe in a pack of gum to pay off the guy giving first fraud crew at work. a road test. Carmine Galasso The Record The Galasso Carmine We used AutoTrackXP and Nexis to try to find Passing signals people, but those involved in the black market Over time, the same DMV workers, are elusive, moving frequently, operating under by name or description, were coming aliases, and giving police phony addresses when up in interviews, and we were learning arrested. Sometimes the address was a vacant lot; more about specific DMV offices with A DMV document specialist examines fraudulent birth certificates often, the closest we could get was a relative. bad employees. We began to spend and other documents in Trenton. “He’s the mess of the family,” one woman told time in these locations. advice. And we worked the conversation back us when we asked how to find her brother-in-law, Meanwhile, under threat of legal action from to the story. whom we had sought for weeks. But not 15 min- The Record’s attorneys, the state police released That’s how we learned that DMV workers utes after leaving her with a message and a cell a list of arrests that included the names of some were often paid off at their homes. That workers phone number, “the mess” was on the line. DMV workers, but few details. Eventually, we and runners inside DMV offices pass signals: a One piece of advice for dealing with criminals: also received copies of the state audits of each circle drawn on the corner of a document; a red Never assume they won’t talk. They can be keen office. We found that the chaos described on paper clip on a license application; the tip of a hat. to cause grief for competitors or for DMV workers paper often translated into corruption behind That workers sneaked documents out in purses or they think are charging too much for documents. the counter. pants, or brazenly passed them over the counter. One day, a broker pointed us to a South Jersey It was becoming clear that conditions within The dealer we had chased down in his SUV DMV where he insisted his competitor did busi- the agency, whose field offices are run by private kept answering our pages and confirming what we ness with a particular worker every Tuesday. We contractors, were the perfect breeding ground for had heard, offering additional tidbits or leads. got to the DMV before it opened. corruption and document fraud. Morale was low Eventually, we were able to persuade two By 2 p.m., when the lines were long and the and turnover high in the cash-starved agency. former DMV workers to tell their stories, but clerks busy, it became clear that a dealer and Reporters Benjamin Lesser and Clint Riley joined only with anonymity. What they had to say was his runners were at work – gesturing, nodding, the project to take a close look. They wrote about startling. One clerk said she had made an extra exchanging papers. One by one, they joined Line poorly trained and underpaid clerks, an antiquated $50,000 in nine months smuggling out learner’s 5. All the men were assisted by the same worker; computer system, and oversight by only two full- permits in her purse, as many as 10 a day. The time auditors for more than 40 field offices. woman’s dealer came to her house and paid her MORE STORIES Out in the field, the two of us apparently $150 for every permit she supplied. came across as supremely non-threatening, and The other said one colleague had bragged If you’re looking for other stories done on people frequently drew erroneous – and comical about raking in an extra $200,000 selling DMV DMVs and illegal drivers, consider these from – conclusions about our presence. documents. the IRE Resource Center: Our repeated cruising of a particular inner-city Both acknowledged that several people in their • KSTP-Minneapolis investigates how Min- neighborhood and asking for a man we knew to offices were taking bribes. nesota drivers without valid licenses be a dealer had local street toughs assuming one “Driving by Deception’’ has been stirring state of us was seeking a cheating boyfriend. action since the first story last fall, including: continue to drive because of a loophole When we sought a young man who worked • The DMV, seeking closer cooperation with the in the state system that prevents police as a dealer’s driver, his mother invited us inside Immigration and Naturalization Service, has from linking auto license plates to revoked and immediately asked, “He didn’t get anybody applied to tap into an INS database that would drivers – Story No. 12870. pregnant, did he?” permit verification of license applicants’ visa or • State DMV employees were taking bribes After we inquired about a former tenant immigration documents. It also stopped issuing to issue drivers licenses to people who at one apartment building, a neighbor replied, four-year licenses to foreigners with temporary “Porque, te engano? —“Why? Was he unfaith- visas. should not have them. This illegal prac- ful to you?” • Gov. James E. McGreevey signed an executive tice allows drunken drivers to buy their Some of the men involved in the license trade order making it more difficult to obtain someone way back onto the road and convicted clearly enjoyed the attention of two reporters. else’s birth certificate from local records offices. criminals to buy new identities. Joel One of us was invited to come dancing to get the • The Legislature passed a bill requiring applicants Grover, Sylvia Teague, KCBS-Los Angeles interview; the other was asked for advice about a to show photo identification before taking either – Story No.14316. girlfriend out for his money. An interview about written exams or road tests. A separate measure corruption veered off into a discussion, mercifully that would stiffen penalties for license fraud is To order, call 573-882-3364 or visit brief, about a marriage lacking passion. pending. www.ire.org/resourcecenter. We listened. We dispensed occasional CONTINUED ON PAGE 39 ×
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case files pertaining to USDA-overseen recalls of bacteria-contaminated meat took two to six SCHOOL FOOD months for that agency to produce. Look at the recall listings posted on the Don’t dismiss kids’ complaints Web sites of the U.S. Agriculture Depart- about school lunches so quickly ment (www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/recalls/ rec_summ.htm) and the U.S. Food and BY DAVID JACKSON Drug Administration (www.fda.gov/opacom/ CHICAGO TRIBUNE Enforce.html). In and of itself, a recall doesn’t indicate an unsafe factory: Food can be recalled ur story was launched not by a tip, but and freedom of information requests to several if the packaging labels contain harmless errors by a trickle of small, easy-to-ignore federal, state and local government agencies. or the water weight is off, and a factory can be complaints from Chicago parents who Information withheld by one may be released punished with a recall because it unwittingly said their kids were getting sick from by another. accepts contaminated food from a downstream Oschool food. First, some reporting basics: supplier. But a close study of the lists may But after a six-month investigation, we • How do you learn about food borne illness yield cases that make you ask, “What hap- reached an unexpected conclusion: There outbreaks? pened here?” are dangerous flaws in America’s food safety Federal, state, county and municipal public To learn whether a particular food plant is system. health departments all may investigate spe- infested with rodents, cited for using spoiled Specifically, the number of U.S. school- cific outbreaks. The U.S. Centers for Disease meat or equipped with rust-caked machinery, food illness outbreaks has been rising since Control and Prevention publishes on its Web also request the inspection records and case 1990, and improved reporting measures don’t site (www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/outbreak/ files of state health and agricultural agen- account for the change. Records gathered from us_outb.htm) summary data on the more than cies, and county and municipal public health several sources detailed the hidden story of the 5,000 food-borne illness outbreaks reported to departments. largest U.S. food-borne outbreak in recent his- the CDC by state and local health authorities Request inspection and enforcement records tory, a 1998 case that sickened more than 1,200 since 1990. The Web site shows the month from federal, state and local environmental students in at least seven states. and year of any food-borne illness outbreak protection agencies. The Tribune’s two-part report led to a joint reported to the CDC, the state where it took Ask to see local building and fire department U.S. Senate-House hearing and an investigation place, the number of people injured and the records on the factories that interest you. Some- by the U.S. General Accounting Office. (The type of food and pathogen implicated. I tested times separate inspections are conducted by GAO, in report GAO-02-669T, confirmed and explored this database – which has many local electrical and water divisions. the newspaper’s findings.) At the spring con- shortcomings – in numerous conversations with gressional hearings, the U.S. Department of government epidemiologists. Agriculture announced the reversal of a key, To get more detail on specific outbreaks, industry-backed confidentiality regulation that request the government case files. If the CDC blocked state and local authorities from access investigates an outbreak, its epidemiologists to food company shipping records during an will compile reports, ingredient matrixes, e- outbreak. Now, having records available will mail and correspondence, patient food histories enable local authorities to trace contaminated and laboratory test results. The CDC did not Chris Walker Chicago Tribune Chicago Walker Chris food and protect children from further harm. respond properly to Tribune FOIA requests, In addition, the stories prompted a swift but CDC records sometimes were duplicated in and sweeping overhaul of the Chicago school state and local case files. Because outbreak case system’s food contracts and safety practices. files contain private information on victims, I Contaminated school meals are important asked agencies to redact personally identifying because children whose immune systems are information on children and private citizens. still developing can be severely injured by • Who inspects the factories where food is pathogens that give adults only mild indigestion. made? It’s also important to remember that food safety Again, there are many layers of government is a sprawling topic that touches everyday lives oversight. On the federal level, the U.S. Depart- and raises national security concerns. ment of Agriculture oversees plants that use The safety of America’s food is overseen meat, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administra- by a complex array of federal, state and local tion is in charge of non-meat plants. Publicly agencies. The fractured government inspection available records from these federal agencies and health system seemed at first like a regula- include inspection reports, citations, fine and A third-grader looks up from his turkey lunch. The tory maze, but the reporting trick was simple: seizure records, as well as case files on specific school receives the prepackaged lunches via a firm Take advantage of the chaos by directing queries recalls linked to outbreaks. FOIA-requested contracted by the board of education.
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• What other records help? ated FOIA requests for USDA computer files I also requested a database showing all To understand precisely what took place on all inspections of U.S. meat plants since USDA detentions and seizures of adulterated during a particular school-food illness outbreak, 1997. Using SAS and SPSS software to analyze and misbranded meat since 1998. The database ask to see the case files and correspondence of the 80 million inspection records, Dougherty signaled filth and rat infestation at regional cold local, state, and federal school authorities. calculated a rate of violations per inspection storage warehouses where school lunch food Search for lawsuits and criminal cases hour at each factory. Meat plants that sold to is held. involving food companies and their officers the $5 billion-a-year National School Lunch • What about human sources? in federal, state and local courts. Personnel and Program had a higher rate of violations than Seek out food plant inspectors from the contract disputes can provide valuable sources meat plants that do not, the analysis showed. USDA and FDA, as well as state and local and unexpected reporting avenues. Dougherty ran a computer analysis linking public health agencies. These shoe-leather Food plants can be shrouded in opaque layers Chicago school illness outbreaks to govern- professionals can be superb teachers. Ask of corporate control. To help lift the veil, search ment lunch subsidies (a key childhood poverty open-ended questions about the things that Lexis-Nexis or any other available databases indicator). The neediest children were more bother them, and let these concerns inform your for corporations linked to the addresses and at risk. reporting. Drop in and visit food company offi- post office boxes of the food companies and Downloading recall data from USDA’s cials. Few reporters actually show up in their their officers. Run every company through the Web site and adding other information, I offices, and many are willing to talk. And talk same set of records checks. built a database of recalls of meat that con- to law enforcement authorities who prosecute • What computer databases are useful? tained potentially deadly bacteria from 1982 the most egregious food safety violations, those Tribune database editor Geoff Dougherty cre- through 2000. CONTINUED ON PAGE 38 ×
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of campaign documents from the ARC. Among them was Wall’s job description, which showed SILENCE BROKEN that campaign duties were the primary focus of her State employees found working taxpayer-funded position. It told her how to hide campaign documents in envelopes sent to the Capi- for candidates on public time tol, and it prohibited her from mentioning that she BY DEE J. HALL worked for the Republican Assembly Campaign WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL Committee from her taxpayer-funded office. Although Wall knew she could be prosecuted t was the type of article that many reporters communicate with their constituents. The word for illegal campaigning, she never hesitated to be dread because it promised to be so mundane: “caucus” has since become synonymous with quoted in the newspaper. Over time, I convinced a routine story about a legislative race with a political corruption in Wisconsin, a state that once six other former caucus staffers to be quoted by short profile of each candidate and a cursory prided itself on its squeaky-clean politicians. name; four more told their stories but declined Ilook at the issues wrapped up in a pre-ordained I called Wittwer to ask him why he was work- to be identified. We decided to use only named 20-inch package. ing on a political campaign from his state office. sources for the stories to boost their credibility. But something unusual happened in September Wittwer insisted he was on his free time and The first story broke on May 20, 2001. 2000 during that race that launched an investigation using his personal cell phone when he answered We reported that the four legislative agencies whose impact continues to reverberate throughout my earlier call. While we talked, Wittwer said he’d employing more than 60 state workers actually Wisconsin politics and threaten the careers of the stepped out into the hallway to avoid doing cam- were secret campaign machines whose primary state’s top legislative leaders. Stories continue paign work at his government office. Wittwer’s job was to get incumbents and selected chal- to break. In fact, it is coverage that provides a story sounded fishy, and I told him so. lengers elected. The cost to Wisconsin taxpayers: blueprint for looking into the behind-the-scenes nearly $4 million a year. machinations of any state legislature. Campaign duties “It’s not confined to either the Democrats Just before the September primary, the husband From that moment on, I was determined to dis- or Republicans, but I would say it happens of one of the candidates in the race I was assigned cover the link between the caucuses and legislative on a wholesale basis and it’s barely disguised to cover died. My boss, assistant city editor Teryl campaigns. After some initial spadework, Franklin anymore,” said Greg DiMiceli, a former Senate Franklin, asked me to find out whether the candi- and then-city editor Joyce Dehli agreed to devote Republican Caucus staffer. “It [campaigning] is date for the Madison-area seat would drop out. I most of my part-time schedule to investigate the almost the reason now for the existence of the contacted Jake Wittwer, the campaign manager caucuses. Over the next several months, I located caucuses.” listed on the candidate’s news release. Wittwer nearly a dozen former caucus staffers who con- We reported that employees of the four partisan was obviously nervous about being quoted in firmed they did illegal campaign work, but most offices recruited candidates, solicited political con- the State Journal, but was adamant the candidate feared coming forward would jeopardize their tributions, designed campaign brochures, provided CAR DETAIL would definitely careers in politics and state government. Many candidates with photographs, distributed literature, remain in the race. candidates also acknowledged receiving help conducted “opposition research” – essentially ran In the May-June issue of Wittwer insisted from “the caucuses,” but most were unaware the entire show for many of Wisconsin’s legislative Uplink, “Looking at campaign that any comments they were state agencies. hopefuls. We found that the extensive network was expenditures” reviews how come from the Despite official denials, tips, documents and hidden by employees’ use of cell phones, private campaigns actually spend candidate herself, e-mails began appearing in my mail boxes showing e-mail accounts and partial leaves that masked contributed funds, while who that very day the caucuses had been doing campaign work for at their full-time work on campaigns. Until then, “Tracking campaign donors was attending her least a decade. During one visit to the Assembly the system had been kept under wraps by a strict through City Hall” offers tips husband’s funeral. Republican Caucus, director Jason Kratochwill code of silence. about maintaining a database My instincts even slipped up by leaving a piece of campaign Over the next several days, we continued to to track campaign finances. told me something material in a stack of papers he said his staff had print more allegations: that Wall and other Assem- Uplink is a newsletter of the was wrong. Why worked on the previous summer. bly Republican Caucus employees secretly worked National Institute for Com- would a campaign The investigation was growing by the week puter-Assisted Reporting on an independent expenditure campaign aimed at (www.nicar.org). manager subject a and pressure was building for us to publish. In late Democratic candidates, that some lawmakers had candidate to a media 2000, I asked Franklin to bring in newly assigned been trying unsuccessfully for years to get rid of interview for a measly three-paragraph story on legislative reporter Phil Brinkman, who used his the caucuses and that the Assembly Republican the day of her husband’s funeral? On a hunch, I computer-assisted reporting skills to analyze phone Caucus destroyed and withheld records to avoid paged through my state of Wisconsin telephone records from the four caucuses obtained under the turning them over to the State Journal under the book and there he was: Jake Wittwer, Assembly state’s public records law. state’s Open Records Law, a possible felony. Democratic Caucus. In March, a huge break in the story came when The impact of the State Journal series was At the time, I and most Wisconsinites had Lyndee Wall, the former administrative assistant immediate. Dane County District Attorney Brian never heard of the Legislature’s four partisan for the Assembly Republican Caucus, agreed to Blanchard launched a criminal investigation; then caucuses, which had been established roughly 30 come forward. We sat amid the packing boxes in a few days later announced he was turning over years earlier to help lawmakers research issues and her apartment as she showed me hundreds of pages part of the probe to Milwaukee County District
12 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 13 FEATURES
Checking for illegal campaigning By Dee J. Hall 1. Examine any partisan offices attached to your legislature. More than a dozen states have them. Find out what their policies are regarding campaign work and how they’re enforced. Then track down former employees to see whether those policies are followed.
Craig Schreiner Wisconsin State Journal State Wisconsin Schreiner Craig 2. Get phone records. Even people with cell phones sometimes slip up and use their state telephones. Compare numbers with those found on campaign Web sites, at political consulting firms, from campaign press releases and candidates’ home and office numbers. 3. Develop a web of sources. Ask each source to name as many other sources as he or she can think of who might be helpful to Boxes of subpoenaed records from the state Assembly caucuses line a meeting room in the office of Assembly the story. Political watchdog groups can Chief Clerk John Scocos. be helpful in finding sources or explaining political landscape. Attorney E. Michael McCann because the Senate much-abused partial leaves of absences. Democratic Caucus had helped Blanchard prepare 4. File public-records requests for documents, his nomination petition. Like other first-time candi- Gag the press photos and graphics. We found that even dates interviewed by the State Journal, Blanchard After the state Ethics and Elections boards when records custodians took great care to said he didn’t know the bland-looking office on refused to turn over documents from their inves- excise documents that could incriminate them (a crime, by the way) they still some- Madison’s Capitol Square was a state agency. tigations, the State Journal and Milwaukee Journal times forgot to delete everything. Among While the Ethics and Elections boards Sentinel sued. The Ethics Board refused to comply, hundreds of photos and brochures we announced their own probes and local watchdog and that suit continues. The Elections Board obtained electronically from the Assem- groups, Common Cause in Wisconsin and the released its documents, which showed an interview bly Republican Caucus, we found three Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, called for an with just one person, Wall, before the board agreed campaign documents they’d forgotten to immediate end to the caucuses, the Legislature to drop the probe. Brinkman later wrote a story in delete. itself remained curiously silent about the explosive which the Ethics Board acknowledged it never did allegations. Only a few lawmakers were willing to any investigation into the caucuses. 5. Keep all campaign brochures. We found talk about the caucuses’ true role. Legislative lead- During the rest of 2001 and early 2002, we some of the same photos taken by state photographers showed up in literature ers who ran the caucuses refused to be quoted or continued to break more stories in the Capitol put out by so-called “independent” interviewed, a stance that continues to this day. scandal under the direction of the new city editor, political organizations. We also found one In August, Brinkman broke the story that Phil Glende, including the following: brochure produced as a legitimate state • several Assembly Republican Caucus staffers Democratic legislative employees spent thousands publication that was nearly identical to a had been subpoenaed to testify as part of a secret of hours at their taxpayer-funded jobs compiling campaign brochure the caucus illegally “John Doe” criminal investigation into illegal voter lists for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin produced for a candidate. campaigning at the Capitol. that were used in political campaigns. In September, as the public grew increasingly • Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala, one of 6. Talk to first-time candidates. They are the most likely to be candid about people disgusted with the scandal, the top leadership the state’s two most powerful lawmakers, used who worked for their campaigns. Ask who added fuel to the fire by quietly agreeing to pay his office as a 1996 campaign headquarters when designed their brochures, who designed the legal fees for any legislators or legislative staff he engineered a recall effort to unseat a Repub- their TV ads, who distributed literature for caught up in the “John Doe” investigation. (A few lican and propel himself into the top leadership them, who raised money for them. If they months later, Common Cause sued to stop the pay- position. claim not to know, they’re either untruthful ments, a court battle that continues to this day.) • Illegal campaign activity is common in some or perhaps not smart enough to run your In October, the leaders agreed to abolish the legislative offices, including the offices of top state. caucuses in exchange for promises by the Ethics leaders, and not confined to the legislative A full copy of the Wisconsin State Journal and Elections boards not to prosecute lawmak- caucuses. series is available from the IRE Resource ers or staff for past campaign activity. They also • A top Republican leader hired a staff member Center (www.ire.org/resourcecenter or 573- implemented work rules aimed at eliminating whose only job was to raise money for and 882-3364) by ordering No. 18736. campaigning at the Capitol and prohibiting the CONTINUED ON PAGE 37 ×
12 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 13 FEATURES
Reporting and writing tips 1. Find your Yodas. When dealing with sci- entific subjects, bounce ideas off experts willing to guide you through the most esoteric topics. Professors often love to do this. So do experts in the private sector, as long as they understand they won’t be quoted. Stress that the agreement is to Ian McVea Forth Worth Star-Telegram Worth Forth McVea Ian provide off-the-record advice. They will help double-check your facts and test your ideas. Sometimes, after trust has been built, they agree to go on the record, too. 2. Read from back to front. Poring over thousands of documents can be difficult work. One trick is to read some sheaths of documents from the back pages to front. It’s amazing what governments or corpo- rations will hide within public reports. It was on the last page of a 200-page envi- American Airlines de-icing crews tend to a departing Boeing 757 on the west side of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Light sleet was falling at the time. ronmental report – commissioned and edited by D/FW Airport executives – where the airport cryptically acknowledged that workers and visitors to the airport could be MURKY WATERS exposed to toxic fumes. Tipsters, experts instructive 3. Write for your children. Our editor likes to in tracing airport pollution tell us to keep pictures of our children on display when writing about complex sub- jects. That keeps us focused on our goal: BY MILES MOFFEIT simplify, simplify, simplify. Also, if you can AND GORDON DICKSON find an Erin Brockovich or two – or three FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM – make them come alive in your story. It keeps the readers’ eyeballs glued to the story and takes the edge off the analysis. he tip came from a tractor dealership outside the airport’s boundaries. three miles outside Dallas-Fort Worth We began our own investigation. It had the 4. Take a few long shots. As Bruce Springs- International Airport. potential of being a great story, given that D/FW teen says, you never know what’s “further Investigators from two federal is the world’s third-busiest airport, that millions of on up the road.” We took a road trip to a agencies,T the FBI and the Environmental Protec- gallons of toxic chemicals are handled every year small Texas city on the remote chance we tion Agency, were snooping along creeks near and that a dozen tributaries of the Trinity River could find a source to provide historical flow through the property. the dealership, according to the business owner, perspective on the airport’s management looking for water pollutants flowing from airport A conflict between the FBI and EPA, of course, of waste problems. We sat slack-jawed as property. Even odder, he noted, was that the agents would make the story even newsier. seemed to be seething at each other. Six months later, we published a two-part he described management’s tendency to “`The EPA didn’t seem to like what the FBI series about how the airport’s underground piping try to distort the real causes behind envi- was doing, and vice versa,”’ he said in a phone system had, over a decade, hemorrhaged at least ronmental problems. call. 1.3 million pounds of toxic waste into the soil, We were intrigued. We knew that the state’s groundwater and creeks where people fish. between the technical lines was an environmental environmental agency had told the airport to fix We wrote about how airport management detective story – sometimes with scenes you’d see waste-control problems over the past two years. stayed silent about the problems and sometimes in a B-grade horror movie. But this was a sign that the problems could be misrepresented them to government regulators. We wrote about three “Erin Brockoviches” more severe than we knew. We didn’t know why We wrote about how differences between the FBI – an airport scientist-turned whistleblower, an agents would be looking for contamination so far and EPA appeared to stall the criminal case. But FBI agent and a state environmental investigator
14 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 15 FEATURES
– who kept hitting walls while trying to expose We tracked them in cyberspace, using government Often, the state environmental agency was problems. water-testing databases and maps. We tracked slow to act and never fined the airport more than We described how toxic orange foam over- them with the whistleblower, a former airport tens of thousands of dollars (little more than the whelmed the airport’s plumbing on Christmas Eve scientist who alleged in a federal lawsuit that her income generated in one day at one of the airport’s 2000, bubbling up everywhere, fanning across the bosses tried to hide the severity of problems to toll booths). tarmac and out of drains and sticking to the shoes obtain grants for runway expansions. In surveying surrounding cities to find out if of airport executives trying to follow its path. Hunting water data on the computer proved a they monitored creek water, we found a testing The November 2001 series produced results. real challenge. Testing of creek water in Texas is station outside airport boundaries operated by Two weeks after it was published, the airport scattershot, at best. Mostly, the data was worthless. the city of Irving. Unlike the state’s monitoring passed an emergency measure to spend $500,000 The monitoring stations are scattered, and the test- stations, this one was actually useful. We looked on water-cleaning equipment. In July, it spent an ing data is not specific enough or timely. at results from the past few years and it became extra $22 million for additional piping and storage We were able to pull readings from a state clear that the station had recorded consistently for used de-icing fluids. database of water-monitoring stations within a high readings of oxygen depletion – a key marker two-mile radius of the airport, but none of the for glycol or fuel contamination in the creeks. Hunting data stations tested for pollutants we were interested Some of the high readings also corresponded We knew we would have to follow a maze of in, such as jet fuels and deicing fluids. to spill dates at the airport. pathways. Pathways of buried pipes. Pathways of Back to the grunt work. We requested inspec- Bingo. We had found another possible link creeks. And pathways of information. tion reports, memos, budgets and anything else between airport spillage and the quality of public This meant understanding issues blending we could think of from the airport, the Texas waters outside the airport’s boundaries. A fishing science, engineering and law. We assembled environmental agency and the EPA. Then, we hole for residents in the poorest neighborhood of a sounding board of Yodas to help guide us: sorted thousands of documents by hand. Irving sat within a few hundred yards of the sta- biology professors at the nearby University of The most damaging data was tucked inside the tion, raising health-related questions. North Texas, civil engineers and specialists in files of state and federal environmental inspectors, After we alerted the city’s water department environmental law. who had found de-icing fluids – the antifreeze and its residents, the city began buying more We prioritized our investigation. How far sprayed on airplanes to reduce ice buildup – in monitoring equipment to pinpoint airport con- should we go in exploring the airport’s envi- creeks as far as a mile outside airport boundaries. taminants. ronmental problems? Should we also pursue air The fluids sometimes killed fish in the creeks, pollution? What about water wells? which ran into neighboring communities. Piping problems We decided to focus on surface waters because Glycol, the main ingredient in deicing fluids, Investigative stories are long strings of tiny drinking reservoirs, fishing and public recreation can be poisonous to both humans and fish. The discoveries – and some breakthroughs – that could be directly affected and because lakes and investigators were finding it with their handheld weave together a bigger picture. creeks also appeared to be the focus of federal testing equipment. We spent most of our time trudging in and out criminal investigations. Water wells are rarely Over and over again, traces of pollutants were of government offices with our favorite tool – let- used for drinking water in urban areas, so we found in violation of the federal Clean Water Act, ters citing the federal Freedom of Information Act didn’t believe the impact could be substantial. the documents showed. Spills as large as 1,000 and the Texas Public Information Act. Soon, we were following the creeks. gallons of jet fuel were found oozing across airport We also knocked on the doors of airport We tracked them on foot with photographers. boundaries in huge rainbow sheens. CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 ×
14 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 15 FEATURES
EPA RESOURCES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15 she exposed also was present in the new multimil- employees and former workers, looking for lion-dollar de-icing pads that were supposed to The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency leads. A major challenge was that the airport’s prevent antifreeze from escaping. has studies, regulations and basic back- top executives, facing the whistleblower lawsuit, After several interviews, the whistleblower ground material available on its Web site. were reluctant to discuss environmental topics agreed to talk on the record about her bosses’ Try these links as a jumping off place for except in very general terms. resistance. She also agreed to share her fascinat- research related to air transportation and Getting their side of the story would be ing experiences as a government informant. water pollution. tricky. But we also knew that a new executive had Ignoring waste • Voluntary emission reduction program for been hired to supervise the airport’s environmental We still had to examine the history of the airport ground support equipment staff. We lucked into a public-relations employee airport’s dysfunctional environmental department. www.epa.gov/otaq/transp/vmweb/ who was willing to escort us into the executive’s Was there a pattern of deception stretching over vmairgnd.htm office for a chat. many years? Our tipsters said yes. • Transportation and air quality planning The chat turned into a two-hour discussion. We found a wealth of information in deposi- www.epa.gov/otaq/transp.htm He candidly zeroed in on the airport’s problems tions from lawsuits that plagued the department handling various forms of toxic waste. We learned • Runoff in the early to mid-’90s. Early in the reporting that he was an expert in cleaning up Superfund process, a search of our newspaper library turned www.epa.gov/ebtpages/ sites, the country’s worst dumpsites. And he told up a small story on a 1997 racial discrimination wategroundrunoff.html us that D/FW Airport’s problems were actually lawsuit filed by a former environmental affairs • Water pollutants worse than a Superfund site. employee. www.epa.gov/ebtpages/ Then, offering a footnote to a point he was The lawyer in the case gave us thousands watewaterpollutants.html making, he dropped a bombshell: the underground of pages of depositions, as well as suits filed by • Legal aspects of water pollution piping at the airport had a quirk. Pipes serving the several other employees. The documents showed www.epa.gov/ebtpages/ de-icing pads, the sites where jetliners are splashed employees had made similar allegations earlier watewaterpollutionlegalaspects.html with antifreeze, can overflow into creeks. in the decade that bosses discouraged them from • Industrial water pollution controls: Effluent We left his office with the discussion on tape reporting environmental problems and ignored guidelines – the first on-the-record confirmation of an allega- waste problems. www.epa.gov/OST/guide/ tion we had sought to substantiate. Even better, the On a lark, we took a road trip to a small city admission came from a top executive. in far north Texas in search of a scientist who • Voluntary emission reduction program for Our next move: locate the blueprints for the had held the whistleblower’s job earlier in the airport ground support equipment piping problems and let our engineering experts decade. www.epa.gov/otaq/transp/vmweb/ review them. We found him in his garden. vmairgnd.htm The airport scientist who was a whistleblower “Come on in for some iced tea,” he said. • Transportation and air quality planning had found some of the piping glitches herself. He was more than eager to talk about his www.epa.gov/otaq/transp.htm After we obtained blueprints from the airport, feelings that the airport had misled government we made the case that the same piping problem regulators. We still needed the airport’s executives to respond to our findings. Why, for instance, did they not explain the core problem with the piping system to state and federal regulators? Why did they appear to alter documents to hide the problem? When we asked for an interview, they wanted to know exactly what we had on tape from their new environmental chief. A spokesman repeatedly urged us to turn over a copy of the tape. Once Jill Johnson Forth Worth Star-Telegram Worth Forth Johnson Jill the executives had the tape in hand, they would probably grant interviews, he said. Sorry, we responded, we’re hanging onto the tape. Finally, they let their lawyers do the talking, and we quoted them. The second-day piece explored the difficulties of controlling airport waste nationwide, the weak- Two brothers fish at Bear Creek as planes fly over head every minute. The fishing hole, a mile southeast of D/FW, ness of environmental oversight, and the unique has shown signs of pollution from airport drainage. CONTINUED ON PAGE 39 ×
16 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 17 BOOKS
up Nader as a hitchhiker] and walked to the NADER’S INVESTIGATIVE scene to see if anyone was injured, and spotted an infant girl. She had been killed by a glove compartment door that had sprung open on impact, nearly decapitating her.” TECHNIQUE OFFERS To educate himself, Nader relied on three types of sources too frequently undervalued by journalists – unpublicized Congressional hear- REPORTING LESSONS ings, law review articles and experts teaching at universities. Although Nader had no formal training in automotive engineering or highway con- BY STEVE WEINBERG THE IRE JOURNAL struction, he made himself an authority, just as investigative journalists do by immersing themselves in a subject matter. Some use the just-published biography of Ralph him. Very quickly I started to detect another term “expert journalism,” because report- Nader by Justin Martin, former For- pattern as well. Often, an interview subject ers who accumulate knowledge eventually tune magazine staff writer, yields would describe Nader in the most glowing become non-credentialed experts. As Nader fascinating insights into the enig- terms. Then, in the very next breath, the same learned more and more about fatal automobile Amatic 68-year-old reformer. The book, “Nader: person would rage about a conflict the two had accidents, he rejected the dominant view that Crusader, Spoiler, Icon” (Perseus Publishing), had. My job became easy. All I really had to do cars don’t kill people, people kill people by doubles in value when read as an was say ‘I understand you know being inattentive drivers. unintended primer for investiga- Ralph Nader,’ then sit back and Nader, as Martin explains, began to grasp tive journalists. listen.” that design and engineering innovations could Nader’s life demonstrates, save lives. Nader began accumulating evidence among other lessons for investiga- No formal training from industry insiders and technical literature tive journalists, the importance of: Reared in Winsted, Conn., as that automobile manufacturers could have built • single-mindedness when pursu- part of an immigrant, tight-knit, safer cars, but decided such innovation would ing an investigation; outsider Lebanese family, Nader have damaged profits too severely. • operating from a platform of seemingly entered the main- controlled outrage; stream by attending Princeton Corporate cosmology • searching for primary docu- University and Harvard Law In 1964, Nader decided to write a book ments; School. He cared little about about auto safety. Published in 1965, “Unsafe • mining the brains of subject- the people he met on those at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the matter experts, including the campuses, instead satisfying his American Automobile” demonstrates classic mavericks; Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, relentless curiosity (the primary investigative technique. As Martin explains: • going inside institutions to culti- Icon, By Justin Martin, quality of almost every great “The role of engineering in auto safety may vate disgruntled employees; and Published by Perseus Pub- investigative journalist) about have been an arcane topic. But he had already • developing a theoretical, or at lishing, $26, 288 pages. issues to the exclusion of inter- amassed a huge amount of information, and least a contextual, framework in personal relationships. more was available for the asking, much of it which to tell a story One of the issues fascinating Nader most: in the public domain. Nader cooperated with Martin, as did why automobiles were so deadly. Journalists For example, Nader found that for 50 cents Nader’s sisters, Laura and Claire. Martin almost never examined that question during a pop he could obtain patent filings, many of received additional rich material by contact- the 1950s. Nader, who had decided against which proved extremely illuminating. Deposi- ing not only family and friends, but also car ownership, would disappear from law tions of auto executives involved in lawsuits enemies. For a biographer of an influential school for days at a time. It turned out he was proved a rich vein, as did articles in techni- living person, locating sources who will be hitchhiking to reach various destinations while cal publications such as the General Motors candid is difficult. simultaneously receiving a crash course (pun Engineering Journal. He was able to obtain With Nader as his subject, though, Martin intended) on auto accidents. confidential documents, such as a California found the difficulty minimal because his sub- As Martin comments, “Truckers in particu- Highway Department circular that identified ject “has ticked off so many people. The 2000 lar were founts of information about common cars which, in the experience of the police, had election, in particular, succeeded in prompting types of accidents and makes of cars that were “an unusually high propensity for accidents.” many close Nader associates – who in the past disproportionately involved. Nader saw plenty Nader discovered that disillusioned auto would have been guarded – to open up and go firsthand as well, including a grisly incident ... employees wanted to talk. In fact, during and on the record ... Nader’s sprawling life inspires the result of a pileup on the highway.... He got after researching “Unsafe at Any Speed,” Nader expansiveness in everyone who has ever known out of the car [of the driver who had picked CONTINUED ON PAGE 40 ×
16 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 17 FEATURES
or bookkeeping. • Perks. The unregulated spending spree for boys by booster clubs means pricy perks for the guys, not the girls. Some of this information can be gleaned from 501(c)(3) forms found online or at the IRS, but better clues are often netted by going through school athletic department files. Most boosters don’t report their expenditures to the IRS, even if they’re required by law to do so. But they will send letters to athletic directors, and Steven Adams Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Pittsburgh Adams Steven often the directors forward them invoices, too. • Scholarships. The disregard for western Pennsylvania’s female programs costs young women $4 million in annual athletic scholarships at nearby colleges. That’s a pretty good report card by which to measure female teams in your area. College coaches like to recruit in their own back yards. If they’re not doing that, the local talent pool is probably bad, and they won’t mind telling you why the girls’ teams are so weak. Here, they pointed to poor coaching slotted for A girls’ team prays moments before taking on a rival. A disregard for girls’ prep programs can cost young women athletic scholarships at nearby colleges. the girls’ teams, plus other problems. • Administration. We asked districts to simply name their Title IX coordinators, a post required by law. The vast majority couldn’t do it. If they INEQUALITY do list them, give the so-called “coordinators” a call. We found many didn’t know they were named to the post. Several asked, “What’s IN SPORTS Title IX?” Few knew what their legal duties Schools found to routinely flout – were. Look for athletic directors also serving as coordinators, charged with scrutinizing their or be ignorant of – Title IX laws own programs for discrimination. We couldn’t BY CARL PRINE make this up. PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW • Salaries. Discrimination doesn’t affect girls alone. Here, only one in every 10 high school t seemed like such a simple idea. Title IX, the federal law intended to give girls an coaches is a woman. The lack of female coaches The assignment: Investigate whether equal chance at playing sports. proved true even in sports no Pennsylvania high public high schools in western Pennsylvania With a nod to a stellar, earlier series on the school boy will ever play, such as softball. When discriminate against young women when it same topic by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a woman is hired, she’s typically paid less than Icomes to sports. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review our key findings: male counterparts coaching the same sport. The wondered if school policies and practices kept • Gender. School policies and lax state and federal canard we heard repeated over and over was that young women and their coaches from learning enforcement of anti-discrimination laws ensure men were paid more because they coached more lifelong lessons about competition, discipline and that two out of every three western Pennsylvania athletes. Data analysis proved that to be a lie. leadership. At the top of the Tribune’s wish list: athletes are boys. In fact, women instruct more girls, with worse Give parents a detailed snapshot of how their tax • Cost. While spending more money on male equipment for less money. Salary specifics will dollars are spent to boost boys’ teams, not girls’ teams isn’t necessarily a Title IX violation, it’s often be found buried deep in collective-bargain- teams. strong evidence of wrongdoing. In western Penn- ing agreements or on supplemental payroll sheets. Easier said than done. It took a lone reporter sylvania, for every tax dollar spent on athletics, Look into what referees are paid, too. Here, ath- six months of 80-hour weeks to tease out the 69 cents go to male teams. The Tribune exploded letic directors hire fewer refs for a girls’ basketball numbers for “Second String: Gender Inequality the myth that football “supports” all the other game, for example, and also pay them less than in High School Athletics.” Hunched over filing teams. In reality, football loses more money than the men at the boys’ game. Typically, qualified cabinets in 129 high schools spread out over all other sports combined, a larger deficit than women never get to referee a boys’ game. By law, eight Pennsylvania counties, interviewing more every female team in the region. This proved they should be allowed to do so. than 500 coaches, athletic directors, parents, especially true at the poorest schools. Some • Compliance. The people responsible for with school leaders and female athletes, I charted impoverished districts spent more on their making sure gender discrimination doesn’t how education officials systematically violate football squads than on building maintenance happen are asleep at the wheel. FOIA the U.S.
18 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 19 FEATURES
vendors and state athletic associations will tell ninth-grade teams. you exactly if the bat you’re looking at on the At most schools, however, you will have to invoice is for softball or baseball. If in doubt, ask find the rosters yourself. If the school lost the the athletic director (AD). lists, try yearbooks (counting the players in the Remember also that the AD’s secretary is photos), and corroborate numbers with kids who your friend. Sergeants run the military, foremen actually played on the teams. Do not trust your the factories and these grossly underpaid women own sports department’s agate, which often lists are the silent hands guiding most high school the kids who played, not the total number of stu- sports programs. dents on the team. Do not count team managers, Many dislike what they see, feel powerless to water boys or cheerleaders as “athletes.” Under
Steven Adams Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Pittsburgh Adams Steven make changes, and will point you toward young the law, they’re not. women and their parents who have complained in To compute spending, you might have to forgo the past. I came away feeling most of these clerks electronic databases. Here, they rarely exist and, would make great athletic directors. when they do, they’re encoded in obscure educa- tion software packages dating to the mid-80s, Counting the athletes sometimes written by long-retired clerks. To show discrimination under Title IX, you To chart athletic spending, I had to build a must know how many boys and girls play sports, unique, interconnected network of Access and Smiles mix with tears of joy after a state finals soccer and then compare that to the ratio of male-to- Excel databases with more than 64,000 individual victory. female students. It’s the first plank of Title IX, a entries to document spending patterns. To make Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights formula embedded in the law. sure I was completely accurate, I mailed my find- for a compliance history for the high schools in I designed a simple survey form listing every ings to schools a month before the story ran. your area. Also, check with your state’s educa- possible high school team – from bowling to Most district officials don’t know how tax tion office and high school athletic association, judo – and sent it to the 129 ADs, return postage dollars are spent on athletics, and there is little which are charged likewise with enforcing anti- paid. All they had to do was pencil in the number oversight by school boards (unless the sport in discrimination laws. “Enforcers” here are paper of boys and girls on their teams, plus the names question is football). A lack of spending on girls’ tigers, and the lack of compliance investigations of coaches. If they don’t do that, tell them their teams isn’t proof of Title IX violations, but parents will prove that. A better source: Search court archrival next door did. They’re competitive love to see where the cash is going. Put it on the filings in your area for disgruntled parents will- souls by nature and don’t like being upstaged. Internet so everyone can take a peek. ing to sue. Don’t forget to ask about the junior varsity and CONTINUED ON PAGE 37 × Combing receipts and budgets For a four-day series that sparked the creation of dozens of new field hockey, track and basket- ball teams for young women – not to mention several softball diamonds, weight rooms and practice fields – there’s also a cautionary tale. Like other states, there’s no Pennsylvania clearinghouse for team rosters, much less ath- letic expenditures. At nearly every school here, business managers have no clue how tax dollars are spent on teams. Spending, typically, is con- trolled by several departments – athletic directors, business offices, transportation managers, payroll clerks, etc. Every school is different, and usually you have to pick through the paper files at several offices yourself. Here, some districts don’t even have computers to tabulate expenditures; the athletic directors run budgets totaling several hundred thousand dollars out of checkbooks. To put it into perspective, I had to comb through more than 6 million receipts and file nearly 1,000 FOIA and Open Records Law requests for the raw data. Bring catalogs of sports equipment with you. Product code numbers from
18 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 19 FEATURES
not in the database, the Web site provides a link to state agencies to contact for more information, MEDICARE WEB SITE helping you to determine whether that nursing home is accredited. Information on the Web site warns the user that the quality of a nursing home PROVIDES NURSING can change quickly, like when new owners take over or the facility’s financial health is altered. HOME DATA When you decide to compare nursing homes, BY CAROLYN EDDS first select a general geographic area such as a THE IRE JOURNAL state or territory. Next, choose a more specific geographic area such as county, city or ZIP code. early everyone knows someone who insurance – which most people receive free when (The database also can be searched by the name has been in a nursing home, or will be they reach 65 because they paid Medicare taxes of the nursing home.) After the specific geo- entering one in the future. That’s why while employed – and medical insurance, which graphic area is selected, the area nursing homes it’s such a compelling subject for inves- has a fee. are displayed. Choose the nursing homes to be Ntigative journalists. But how do you add depth to The nursing home comparison on the Medi- compared. If several nursing homes are listed, these stories? One way is by pulling hard numbers care Web site allows for the search of any nurs- one option is to click on a button to select all from a government Web site. ing home in the country certified by Medicare or nursing homes. Specifically, the Medicare Web site offers Medicaid. Information about the nursing homes The results display four columns. The first valuable information on the 1.7 million people includes a wide variety of data, ranging from the column contains the name of the nursing home, in this country who live in nursing homes. number of beds and type of ownership, to the address, phone number, provider number, date of Searchable databases range from nursing home percent of residents with pressure sores or urinary last inspection and date of the complaint-report- comparisons, to a dialysis facility comparison, to incontinence. Also included: health deficiencies ing period. The second column describes resident lookups for Medicare participating suppliers and found during the most recent state nursing home characteristics such as how many are confined to physicians in a specific area. survey and from recent complaint investigations. bed or have restricted joint motion. Of the eight First, a bit of history: Medicare, which was You also can find the average number of hours measures of resident characteristics, the second signed into law in 1965 by President Johnson, worked by registered, licensed practical or voca- column contains how many of these measures are is a health insurance program for people age 65 tional nurses and certified nursing assistants per available. The third column contains the number and older. It also covers some people with dis- resident per day. of health deficiencies found. The final column abilities who are younger than 65 and people with Still, keep in mind that information on this contains the number of nursing staff hours per permanent kidney failure who need dialysis or Web site is only for nursing homes that are Medi- resident per day. a kidney transplant. Medicare provides hospital care- or Medicaid-certified. If a nursing home is The first column also contains a button for viewing all the information available for that nursing home. This information includes the number of certified beds, number of residents in the certified beds, whether it is Medicare- or Medicaid-certified and ownership type. Also included: percentages of residents with infec- tions, those in physical restraints, or residents who improved in walking. At the same time, you can find information on the deficiencies and a chart comparing the number of residents and nursing staff at that nursing home to the average in that state and the United States. Several buttons are available for help on topics such as the quality measures or how to understand the comparison of the nursing staff averages. In addition to the databases, several mailing list subscriptions are available from the Medi- care Web site and some of these lists include a searchable archive.
Carolyn Edds is the Eugene S. Pulliam research director for IRE. She directs the IRE Resource www.medicare.gov/NHCompare/Home.asp Center and helps maintain Web resources.
20 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 21 FEATURES
2 0 0 3 � The Pulliam Journalism Fellowship
Jump-start your journalism career with a solid program that boasts four Pulitzer Prize winners among its alumni — the Pulliam Journalism Fellowship. The Fellowship offers myriad career opportunities; in fact, a Pulliam Fellow from our first class of 1974, Barbara Henry, now serves as president and publisher of The Indianapolis Star.
Now entering its 30th year, the 2003 Pulliam Journalism Fellowship helps build a bridge from the classroom to the newsroom. Fellows are assigned to The Indianapolis Star or The Arizona Republic in Phoenix for 10 weeks each summer as staff reporters. We award 20 Fellowships annually.
We'd like to encourage applications from students with a wide variety of backgrounds. Previous internships and part-time experience at a newspaper are desired or other demon- stration of writing and reporting ability. Those who go through the Fellowship often find new professional opportunities opening up at other newspapers during and after the pro- gram. Past Fellows now serve as newspaper publishers, editors and reporters all over the world.
Traditionally, our Fellowships have been open only to graduating college seniors. In 2001, we expanded eligibility to include college sophomores and juniors, as well as seniors pur- suing a career in newspaper journalism.
Contact us anytime after Sept. 1, 2002, for an application packet for our Summer 2003 program. Our early admissions deadline is Nov. 15, 2002, with up to five winners notified by Dec. 15, 2002. Non-winning early admissions applicants will be reconsidered with all later entries, which must be postmarked by March 1, 2003. Winners from this group will be notified by April 1, 2003. The stipend for the 10 weeks will be $6,300.
Visit our Web site at http://www.indystar.com/pjf or e-mail Fellowship Director Russell B. Pulliam at [email protected] for an application packet. You also may request a packet by writing:
Russell B. Pulliam, Director The Pulliam Journalism Fellowship P.O. Box 145 Indianapolis, IN 46206-0145
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 21 POOR REGULATION The stories always sound heartbreakingly the Booming centers lack same. An elderly person, confused, walks away consistent standards, from a facility entrusted with his or her care. quality state to state The result is often death for these frail residents
BY BRENT WALTH who may stumble into a frigid night dressed only THE (PORTLAND) OREGONIAN in thin night clothes.
he police found Betty McCallister’s body when the snow Or, there is the developmentally disabled indi- melted. The 77-year-old had wandered out of her residence, the Taylor vidual, dependent on group home care, who is neglected while the operators of these House assisted-living center in Findlay, Ohio, as a December 1998 storm blew in. The center’s staff hadn’t paid attention to McCallister’s roamings, understaffed and under-supervised operations collect private and public funds. even though her family worried about her increasing confusion. Searchers found her body three weeks later, a quarter mile from the center. Assisted living often comes at a very high price, but as the population ages, that Before a thaw exposed McCallister’s body, Alvis Wrenn wandered cost can only grow. Investigative stories based on hard data and the human toll out of his residence at the Post House assisted-living center in Glassboro, N.J., early on the morning of Jan. 19, 1999, two days before his 90th bring the stories to the doorstep of nearly everyone. birthday. The search for Wrenn took about an hour. Police found Wrenn, wear- ing blue pajamas and an Atlanta Braves baseball cap, face down in a drainage ditch alongside the center’s parking lot. He had drowned in a foot of water. ROWING RISIS The states of Ohio and New Jersey cited their respective centers for G C their failure to adequately care for McCallister and Wrenn, who joined a Aging population growing list of elderly who die or are injured because of neglect or abuse in assisted-living centers. points out need The assisted-living industry has boomed, portrayed as a friendlier for investigations version of long-term care for people who don’t want to go into nursing homes. Assisted living offers beautiful buildings, private apartments and care designed especially for each resident. Unlike the regimen imposed by BY MARY ZAHN nursing homes, assisted-living residents are promised the freedom to grow MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL old with dignity. About 800,000 people now call assisted living home. aye Bleicher, 90, was found on a 15-degree December morning, clad Move fast or die only in a diaper and a nightgown, outside the suburban Milwaukee While assisted living has worked wonderfully for many Americans, assisted living facility charged with her safekeeping. this emerging form of long-term care isn’t well-defined or well-regulated. It was the second time in less than two years that Bleicher had wandered In turn, some elderly residents have found the care they need hasn’t been out the same door in the same type of weather. Only this time she would freeze provided, sometimes with disastrous results. to death. At The Oregonian, Erin Hoover Barnett, the newspaper’s reporter A review of more than 400 state inspection reports on assisted-living facilities covering aging issues, and I set out to see if we could find what was hap- in the past four years revealed that Bleicher’s case was not unique. pening with this long-term care industry that had been launched in recent A six-month Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found that hundreds years with so much promise. of vulnerable elderly and disabled people had been injured or placed at risk Our series, “Assisted Living At Any Cost,” found an industry torn by – often by caregivers who are poorly trained or stretched too thin. The records shaggy quality and flimsy standards state to state. documented one life-threatening incident after another. More than two dozen We also found the assisted living industry had grown fast – danger- deaths between 1997 and 2000 were related to caregiving. ously fast. At the same time, my colleague Tom Held, who covers public policy issues We told our story by following the rise and sudden collapse of Oregon- and events as a general assignment reporter, was assigned to look at the other Continued on page 24 side of the equation: What happens to the elderly or disabled who can’t pay
22 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 23 The stories always sound heartbreakingly the GROUP HOMES same. An elderly person, confused, walks away Newspaper helps win from a facility entrusted with his or her care. more openness, end to The result is often death for these frail residents secret death reviews who may stumble into a frigid night dressed only BY DAVE ALTIMARI in thin night clothes. THE HARTFORD COURANT
Or, there is the developmentally disabled indi- hen an 11-year-old boy and a 36-year-old woman drowned within a month of each other in different group homes in December vidual, dependent on group home care, who is neglected while the operators of these 2000, officials from the Department of Mental Retardation called the incidents “isolated.” understaffed and under-supervised operations collect private and public funds. An advocate for the mentally retarded said she couldn’t recall another similar death in 40 years. Assisted living often comes at a very high price, but as the population ages, that The two deaths seemed worthy of more investigation but the immediate cost can only grow. Investigative stories based on hard data and the human toll problem was the veil of secrecy surrounding any death in a state institu- tion. When The Hartford Courant first submitted a freedom of information bring the stories to the doorstep of nearly everyone. request to DMR asking for deaths in group homes over a 10-year period, we were rebuffed. So instead we asked for the address of every group home in the state, whether operated by the state or a private contractor licensed by DMR. privately for assisted-living slots or for needed services? Where do they end We got more than 700 addresses. up? The overall theme: “Where will we live and who will care for us?’ Jack Dolan, the computer-assisted reporting expert on our team, ran The stories resulted in legislative outrage and a call to audit regulations those addresses against our database of death certificates. He came up governing the industry. with a list of more than 1,000 people who had died over a 10-year period Selling such a newsroom project is easy. The statistics scream crisis: Over at the addresses identified by DMR as group homes. The next step for the next 20 years, the projected number of elderly Americans needing long- fellow investigative team member Elizabeth Hamilton and me was the term care will double to nearly 14 million, as people live longer and members time-consuming process of tracking down death certificates and then trying of the baby boom generation – now in the midst of helping their aging parents to determine if a death was suspicious. – head into retirement themselves. It wasn’t long before we saw trends. Lots of people died of infections or problems with ingesting food. We never were able to categorize these Care issues deaths as being the result of neglect. Instead, we tried to focus on clearly For months, I had heard anecdotal stories from state inspectors and ombuds- negligent cases, such as the boy who died when his head was crushed men that assisted-living facilities, hungry for high-paying residents, were begin- between the mattress and an improperly installed bed rail. ning to accept and keep residents who required levels of care well beyond Or the 62-year-old woman who boiled to death in the bathtub at a group what the facilities could offer. State regulations, I was told, were inadequate home that had been cited only a few months earlier for keeping the water to keep up with the burgeoning industry. Some of the facilities were alleged to temperatures too hot. She had climbed into the bath while workers were misrepresent the level of care they could provide. setting the table for dinner in another section of the group home. I started by filing requests – under Wisconsin’s Open Records law – for state inspection reports of assisted-living facilities at various offices throughout the Not-so-isolated incidents state. That meant spending weeks reviewing hundreds of files, some of which We ultimately identified 36 cases where staff neglect, error or other were four inches or more thick. Whenever I started to tire or lose focus, I thought questionable circumstances led to the deaths of mentally retarded people about some of the victims and was re-energized. There was the elderly man in the state’s care. Nearly one in every 10 deaths over a 10-year period who had fallen 11 times and told inspectors “I can’t get anyone to walk with was questionable – far from isolated incidents. me, they are too short of staff,” and the elderly woman who suffered for eight Because DMR refused to release details of the 36 cases, we then had days with a broken thigh bone before she was taken to a hospital. to set about finding the families of the 36 to tell their stories. What we I almost always had the records photocopied to save time and then entered found in many cases was that DMR kept details of the deaths even from some of the data into a database so I could search for patterns. I paid particular the victims’ families, using confidentiality laws that protected the state Continued on page 26 Continued on page 28
22 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 23 C O V E R S T O R Y
had worked as a former video arcade manager, an espresso maker, a funeral director. Overall, we found 79 assisted-living center deaths associated with neglect nationwide – most
Michael LloydThe Oregonian in the past five years, but a total based on anecdotal evidence, because no one tracks the people killed or injured by neglect or abuse in assisted-living centers. We found that investigators looking POOR REGULATION into the deaths of 10 ALC residents since CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22 Bertha Rothery, 95, gets her eyedrops from caregiver Jackie Papke. 1997 found neglect based Assisted Living Concepts (ALC), a or a failure to provide pioneer in the field. ALC and its competitors adequate care associated with the cases, includ- raced to grab as much ing those of McCallister Ot he r probl e m s surfa c e d. Re c ords we found market share and profit DIGGING FOR DATA in Ohio and Wrenn in showed that a police officer – responding to a as quickly as possible. Erin Hoover Barnett’s tipsheet, New Jersey. n i g h t t i m e c a l l a b o u t a m i s s i n g r e s i d e n t a t A L C ’s ALC at one point aver- c e n t e r i n G o o s e C r e e k , S . C . – d i s c o v e r e d a d o o r “Digging for long-term care data,” Inconsistent aged a new center every presented at the 2002 IRE Annual u n l o c k e d a n d t h e n i g h t a i d e s l e e p i n g wh i l e r e si- week. “It was move fast One of the most dents wandered the halls. In 1998, investigators Conference, is available from IRE’s or die,” one former ALC common problems we f o u n d r e s i d e n t s i n t h e c o m p a n y ’s Va n c o u v e r, Resource Center. For tipsheet executive told Barnett. found among all com- Wa s h . , c e n t e r w a s t i n g a w a y b e c a u s e o f b a d ALC slashed bud- No.1662, call 573-882-3364 or visit panies was mix-ups food or lack of help eating. And in 2000, when gets, paid measly wages www.ire.org/resourcecenter. involving assisted- state regulators investigated two deaths at the and hired inexperienced living centers’ delivery c o m p a n y ’s S u m n e r, Wa s h . , c e n t e r, a n a i d e a s k e d staff: People hired to manage the centers often of medications to residents. them, “What are we supposed to do when there lacked health-care experience but instead is an emer gency?” To b e s u r e , c a r i n g f o r t h e e l d e r l y i s d i f - fi c u l t w o r k , a n d m i s h a p s c a n e a s i l y h a p p e n w h e n d e a l i n g w i t h r e s i d e n t s w h o a r e o l d , f r a i l and failing. But unlike nursing homes, which f ace n atio n al s tan d ar d s o f car e, as s is ted liv in g i s r e g u l a t e d s t a t e b y s t a t e , a n d t h e r u l e s a r e inconsistent, as is the quality of regulation. Overall, we found many residents love a s s i s t e d li v i n g – bu t th a t wh e n th e r e ar e pr o b-
Michael Lloyd The Oregonian The Lloyd Michael l e m s , re s i d e n t s ma y fe a r sp e a k i n g ou t , if on l y b e c a u s e t h e i r o t h e r c h o i c e s f o r l o n g - t e r m c a r e are less appealing. “ M a n y p e o p l e s a i d t h e y l o v e d i t t h e r e , ” o n e i n v e s t i g a t o r w h o f o u n d n e g l e c t a t a n A L C c e n t e r t o l d u s . “ B u t e v e n i n t h e f a c e o f n e g l e c t , t h e y f e a r e d l o s i n g t h e i r f r e e d o m a n d n o t g e t - t i n g t o l i v e i n a p l a c e t h a t w a s a s b e a u t i f u l . ”
Bren t Wa lth i s a s en i o r rep o r ter a t T h e O re g o n ia n a n d a me m b e r of th e ne w s p a p e r’s proj e c t s te a m . Edith Funk, 96, drifts off to sleep holding the teddy bear that the staff at Rackleff House gave “ A s s i s t e d L i v i n g a t A n y C o s t ” c a n b e f o u n d a t her. Funk lived at the facility for three years before dying in her sleep. www.o rego n l i ve.c o m/ s p e c i a l .
24 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 25 C O V E R S T O R Y ASSISTED LIVING SOURCES By Brent Walth Many problems with assisted living have been described in congressional testimony and in reports by the U.S. General Accounting Office.
If you’re planning a story on the issue, there are several sources to consider:
• The American Society on Aging (415-974-9600, www.asaging.org) and the National Center For Assisted Living (202-842-4444, www.ncal.org), which publishes the helpful “Facts and Trends: The Assisted Living Sourcebook.” Both organizations can provide the big picture regarding elder care and assisted living.
• The Consumer Consortium on Assisted Living, a watchdog group, works exclusively on assisted-living issues (703-533-8121, www.ccal.org).
• Securities and Exchange Commission records can help identify publicly traded companies, and the companies’ annual reports describe market conditions, financial information and major industry competitors. Because the industry isn’t regulated by the federal government, the definition of assisted living differs by state, as do the rules.
• Locally, the best place to start is with your long-term care ombudsman’s office, which usually tracks neglect and abuse cases. To find your local or state ombudsman’s office, go to www.ltcombudsman.org.
• Local regulators can be found at www.eldercare.gov. State and local regulators may perform routine inspections, but they also investigate complaints. Take into account the varying quality of regulators. We found some states’ regulators to be excellent in their policing of troubled assisted-living centers; others were so poor that calling their work “superficial” would be a compliment.
Also, some investigators usually look to see if they can substantiate complaints and if those complaints violate state rules. We examined hundreds of investigators’ reports from 16 states where ALC operated. Many reports require careful reading because they often do not describe the out- come for the resident. For example, one state’s investigative report described neglect of an ALC resident. Buried deep in the report, the investigator noted, as if in passing, that a funeral home came by to pick up the resident. That was it – a lone, vague and easy-to-miss mention the resident had died. In all cases, the reports did not name residents, but we knew families had stories to share. In some cases we interviewed residents to see what they could tell us about problems. In cases of death, we linked the incidents with names by matching dates in the reports to obituaries and county death logs. We had great luck using the Social Security Death index; one of the best search engines to use the index is at www.ancestry.com/ssdi. Local courthouses may hold records of lawsuits or other civil actions against centers. For example, two lawsuits brought against ALC centers by the Texas attorney general’s office brought to light one death and separate, grievous neglect allegations. ALC paid a combined $14,500 to settle the cases while admitting no wrongdoing.
24 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 25 C O V E R S T O R Y GROWING CRISIS lems, it helped to take THE EVIDENCE ON AGING Cost and demand a slow approach and CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23 Meanwhile, Held was trying focus on the numbers attention to cases where elderly people had died to unravel the other side of the long- that I wanted: how many as the result of care issues. term care continuum involving lack of beds were available, In addition, I found someone who worked funding and community placements how much they cost and for the state regulatory agency responsible for for both the elderly and disabled. how many people needed them. I wrote the these facilities who had, on his own, started a He found families stretched to the database tracking the most egregious violations limit waiting for help in caring for and facilities in the state. He willingly shared his their loved ones. Wisconsin, like data, which, helped me zero in on the worst of almost every other state, is faced the worst. with overwhelming costs and The data showed that serious problems in demand. assisted-living facilities were found in all parts of “Writing about the commu- the state and involved both small providers and nity-based services in Wisconsin, facilities owned by large chains. and their inadequacies, posed a Because state inspection reports do not contain challenge that reminded me
the names of the elderly victims, finding family of the word problems that Dale Guldan Milwaukee Journal Sentinel members of those who had died, or been injured, bedeviled me in high school,” was a challenge. In some cases state ombudsmen Held said. “Statistics from the knew the family members and were willing to advocacy groups and even dif- contact them on my behalf for interviews. In ferent state agencies seldom other cases, I relied on county medical examiner’s matched.” records. “I worked through reports Tina Brewer enjoys weekends at home with her husband, Garrell, who The state reports generally gave the date from the State Department of spends the rest of the week in a nursing home after suffering a catastrophic stroke two years ago. More than 600 people in the state are living in and place of death and sometimes the age of the Health and Family Services institutions while on waiting lists for community-based services. victims. Using that data I went through morgue and the Legislative Fiscal records and tried to match the information. Some- Bureau comparing financial allocations and the times I filed for police reports, if it appeared that number of ‘slots’ available for people who needed significant numbers on index cards, spread them they had been called to the scene. help. As in dealing with those math prob- out on my kitchen table and shuffled them as I outlined the story.” “Finally, before writing the piece, I taped a note card to my computer. It said: ‘Remember the people.’ It helped remind me that the num- bers were meaningless unless I could show how the waiting lists, or lack of services, affected the people and their families.” In the end, Held and I interviewed more than 100 people, including assisted-living licensing specialists, facility owners, state ombudsmen, legislators, national experts and family members.
Dale Guldan Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Journal Milwaukee Guldan Dale We kept meticulous files so that when it came time to write, we knew where to find the information. Our data was so solid that even industry trade associations, advocacy groups and government leaders, who we had expected to be defensive, complimented our thoroughness. But most rewarding were the hundreds of let- ters, phone calls and e-mails from families facing the traumatic issue of long-term care. The vast majority just wanted to say thank you.
Mary Zahn is an award-winning project reporter Jerry Steinke carries belongings for his great-aunt Alma Gunness (on bed), 92, as she says goodbye to with expertise in investigations involving public Danielle Hart, residence director at Alterra Clare Bridge Cottage in Whitewater. Gunness had to move policy issues and has been trained in computer- because she ran out of money. assisted reporting.
26 THE IRE JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 27 C O V E R S T O R Y THE EVIDENCE ON AGING As America grows old, news organizations fought regulation, and the demograph- your state data crunched already, check are devoting more enterprise time to the ics driving these trends. reports from the University of California, aging beat. Here are several examples of CAR component: The story was San Francisco. The most recent report projects, along with some insights by the based, in large part, on a merger between can be found at http://nccnhr.newc.com reporters on their investigative methods two databases: licensed aides and crimi- —Dave Parks, The Birmingham News and computer-assisted reporting (CAR) nals. Making the marriage work, however, techniques. was a major task involving three people • The story: Milking the helpless. Attorneys and months of digging. While the actual are siphoning off millions from the elderly • The story: Nursing home deaths in Okla- joining of tables is CAR 101, in this case, they have sworn to protect. This two-part homa. More than 1,000 nursing home state officials provided large, unwieldy series revealed how politically connected residents died during the past 10 years and largely incompatible databases. In New York City attorneys working as from bed sores, malnutrition, dehydra- short, anyone attempting a story like this court-appointed guardians have made tion, accidents and other causes of should seek, at all costs, data with strong millions from the assets of elderly wards. death that are often preventable. Only join fields – such as date of birth – and A legislative overhaul did little to reform a handful of the deaths received an should be prepared to verify results by past abuses in the state’s guardianship autopsy and the doctor did not view pulling paper records. It’s a lot of work, system. Instead, it created a money trough most bodies after death. Though the but the reward is information that would for well-connected attorneys. Since 1993, state had a lengthy policy on what to not exist otherwise. – Robert Gebeloff, city attorneys have billed more than $63 do when a prison inmate dies, nursing The (N.J.) Star-Ledger (Detailed story in million in fees from the assets of elderly home deaths get little review unless the January-February 2000 issue of The individuals the courts deemed could no someone files a complaint. In a follow-up, IRE Journal.) longer handle their own affairs. The life we analyzed where the deaths occurred savings of the elderly have been whittled and who owned the homes. • The story: Alabama’s nursing homes. A away by lawyers billing $300 an hour or CAR component: Computerized series of stories examining the quality more to perform routine functions like death certificates contained the causes and cost of the state’s nursing homes. making a telephone call, sending a fax of death among nursing home resi- Nursing homes are swamped in prob- or visiting them in a nursing home. The dents during a 10-year period. The data lems as they struggle to prepare for a series, which ran in May 2001, spurred was obtained from the Oklahoma State gray wave of baby-boomers. This theme administrators to seek sweeping reforms Department of Health’s vital records divi- covers a multitude of stories that can be of how paying appointments are doled sion. Death certificates are public records found in every state and locale. In our out in New York. in many states. Check to see if your state series, we showed that many Alabama CAR component: We purchased on is one of them. – Ziva Branstetter, Tulsa nursing homes were high in cost and disk the New York State Office of Court World low in quality. We examined staffing Administration list of fiduciary appoint- problems at nursing homes, bankrupt- ments dating back 10 years. This lists • The story: Home health care in crisis. New cies, lawsuits, worker shortages, late every paid court appointment that a Jersey is licensing more than 100 crimi- inspections, fraud, Alzheimer’s care, cost state judge has awarded and links the fee nals to work unsupervised in the homes considerations and consumer issues. to a case. From the list of appointments of the state’s most vulnerable residents. CAR component: Basic data is we were able to target which attorneys Politics, economics and a healthy dose available at www.medicare.gov. You received the most appointments and of lax government oversight converged can download databases of detailed their fees. We also were able to identify in this story, which showed how New information on every nursing home in which judges awarded the fees and, Jersey’s licensing system for home the nation, or you can use the search through reporting and clip searches, health aides failed to prevent more than engine provided at the site. Even more identified connections between the 100 recently convicted criminals from detailed inspection reports are available players. We ranked attorneys by the size gaining certification. The project also at the agency in your state that conducts of their fees and the number of appoint- looked at the underground health aide nursing home inspections. Usually it’s ments they received. —Tom Zambito, industry, how home health companies the state health department. If you want (N.Y.) Daily News
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GROUP HOMES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23 more than its clients. We also searched a database of lawsuits obtained from the state Judicial Department. One of those cases led us to the death of 21- year-old Lisa Barry, whose autopsy was done
MichaelMcAndrews Hartford Courant
Maria Welter holds a wreath that decorated the grave of her profoundly retarded brother, Joseph Rodriguez, who choked to death after one-on-one supervision at his group home was eliminated.
Rodriguez was fond of ribbons and carried them everywhere. Michael McAndrews Hartford Courant Hartford McAndrews Michael
in a medical school rather than medications? The by the state medical examiner’s question couldn’t be answered because the Michael and Kathy Barry will never know why their daughter Lisa died. office. medical school doctor failed to take enough Her body was shipped to the classroom of a University of Connecticut The inadequate autopsy failed blood to do a proper toxicology test. professor, who was unschooled in forensic science and never took the to answer a key question that necessary steps to determine if Lisa had been given medication to The interviews with families we could control seizures. The Barrys soon found that the Department of Mental nagged Lisa’s parents – did she find, coupled with a review of the causes Retardation refuses to release written findings as to why clients under die of a seizure because staff had its care die – even to families. of death, led us to several startling conclu- neglected to give her the proper sions. The overall death rate in group homes dramatically outpaced the increase in group home population. There was little accountabil- ity when someone did die, police were rarely called, DMR investigated its own employees and shared the results with no one. Some of the deaths we uncovered were directly attributed to staffing shortages, particularly in privately run group homes. Legislature, governor step in The next task was putting all of the infor- mation into concise stories spelling out some
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of the horrific deaths while pointing out the IRE RESOURCES system’s shortcomings. We had to put our stories together quickly when we discovered More assisted-living story ideas and tips for investigating group homes can be accessed that DMR officials were sending letters to all through the IRE Resource Center. Visit www.ire.org/resourcecenter or call 573-882-3364. group home operators and clients criticizing our research before it was even published. • Story No. 18955: “Questionable Care” The ploy did not work. When the two-part By Amy Davis series ran, legislators pledged a full review WLOS-Asheville, N.C., reported on abuse and neglect at Pleasant Cove Assisted Living Facility, of the system and scheduled hearings within the largest adult-care home in Buncombe County. After the story ran in July 2001, state and days, allowing some of the families we had county authorities carried out inspections and downgraded Pleasant Cove’s license. identified to testify about their ordeals. Legislators promised wholesale changes and vowed to end the secret investigations, but • Story No. 18868: “For city’s mentally ill, death and misery in lives of obscurity” they never got a chance to act. That’s because By Clifford J. Levy Gov. John Rowland, sensing the political A New York Times investigation revealed the poor conditions in which mentally ill people live in groundswell and acknowledging some of the the state of New York. The Times reported on the premature deaths of many residents in adult paper’s findings, issued an executive order homes, which are typically run by businessmen with no mental-health training. The homes also completely changing how group home deaths were found to have systemic problems such as untrained workers and gaps in supervision. would be investigated. Rowland dismantled DMR’s mortality • Story No. 18819: “Dying in Darkness: Ugly results of state care revealed” review system and replaced it with an inde- By Ken Foskett and Ann Hardie pendent board consisting of the chief state’s A 2001 series in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigated the deaths of the mentally attorney, state police and medical profession- als who must report their findings of death retarded in Georgia. The report documented 163 deaths that had occurred since late 1997, investigations annually to the governor and when the state began transferring people from state institutions to privately managed the legislature. group homes. The Journal-Constitution found that many of the deaths resulted from abuse Rowland didn’t stop there. His order also and neglect. mandated DMR to review all untimely deaths in conjunction with the state police, to increase • Story No. 18801: “Voiceless and Vulnerable” the frequency of unannounced visits to the By Paul McEnroe private and public facilities it licenses and to A four-day series in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune examined the treatment of Minnesota’s men- require that all providers post their licensing tally retarded citizens in state-regulated group homes. The investigation found that reports inspection reports in their facilities or on the of mistreatment often drew little response from the state. Internet.
Dave Altimari has been with The Hartford Courant • Story No. 18780: “Trust Betrayed” for nearly four years and is part of a four-person By Scott Carroll and Robert Eckhart investigative team. In 2001, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported on abuses in Florida’s homes for the disabled. The investigation found that state inspectors had ignored complaints that residents were being mistreated, sexually assaulted, and deprived of their money and belongings.
• Story No. 18593: “Foster Fare” By Elizabeth Cogan The Capital News Service at the University of Maryland used 1998 data to detail the plight of disabled children in the state foster-care system. The report substantiated a long history of anecdotal evidence that disabled children were more likely to end up in group homes or head for a course of long-term foster care, and less likely to be placed with relatives.
• Story No. 15485: “Invisible lives: D.C.’s troubled system for the retarded”
MichaelMcAndrews Hartford Courant Robert Benson fought long and hard to get his By Katherine Boo son Steve out of Mansfield Training School. He was A 1999 story in The Washington Post uncovered more than 350 incidents of abuse, neglect, one of the first parents to join a lawsuit to close the institution. Four years after moving into a group home, molestation or stealing in Washington group homes or day programs in the 1990s. During Steve choked to death. that time, the government had not levied a single fine at the homes, which were in large part run on a for-profit basis by health care entrepreneurs.
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Services Commission, we negotiated the cost down to about $2,000. But the county informa- tion systems folks still dragged their feet. JUSTICE Via the Texas Open Records Law, we monitored the correspondence between county officials regarding our request and bothered DISMISSED them constantly. Agreed-upon deadlines for providing the data were not met. So finally, we Data details judges’ contacted the company that set up the county’s computer records system and hired one of its rampant tossing of cases employees to write and run the program for $1,000. Within weeks, we had a “flat file” we Y OE LLIS B J E imported into an Access database. AND RIAN OLLISTEROF B C Our first objective was to see how tough KMOL-SAN ANTONIO – or how lenient – the criminal court judges were on crimes like DWI, drugs, assaults or housands of accused criminals in asked for all Bexar County criminal court sex offenses. However, when we looked at the Bexar County, Texas, are off the records to be provided electronically. We “court disposition” field, we kept noticing cases hook because the county justice already had access to criminal records through “dismissed for lack of speedy trial.” That got system couldn’t get their cases to a dial-up system in our newsroom. But we our attention. So we isolated all those cases Tcourt fast enough. needed a complete database of our own to see and counted them by the “disposition year” We broke the story after four months of how judges run their courts. field we created from the “disposition date” investigating, but fought more than a year for At first, the County Information Services field in the data table. the data. No news organization in San Anto- Department quoted a $17,000 figure for our We noticed a dramatic increase from the nio had investigated the Bexar County court request, citing costly programming since there 607 cases dismissed for “lack of a speedy trial” system with a database of its court records. was no pre-existing program for the job. After between 1996 and1998 to the 5,200 cases dis- And some county officials wanted to make gathering advice from fellow members of the missed for the same reason from 1999 to 2001. sure we didn’t. NICAR e-mail listserv, researching the cost, We decided to focus on the latter three-year The battle began in December 2000. We and seeking help from the state’s General period and filtered out those 5,200 records and put them in a separate table. Through further query we calculated how long these cases were on file. Some were five, 10 or 15 years old. But it seemed strange that many would be less than two years – or even one year old. Law experts agreed. Clearing the dockets We then started looking through hundreds of individual case files, looking for answers, and people to help with our story. In those files we found victims like Virginia, who had been beaten by her husband once and had a restraining order against him when he assaulted her the second time. She didn’t know, until we told her, that a criminal court judge had thrown out the case against her now ex-husband because he didn’t get a speedy trial. “Nobody even told me. Nobody ever con- tacted me,” Virginia said. She wasn’t alone. A “count” query of the “offense description” field of our data table, showed more than 400 other assault cases that didn’t get to court fast enough. We also found 734 DWI-related cases in which the driver was never prosecuted, includ-
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ing the driver who hit Myrna Ellison. FOI REPORT “I assumed something was done,” Ellison said. Nothing was done, though. Even though Sun-Sentinel uses it was the driver’s second such arrest, Judge M’Liss Christian dismissed the case. FOI-powered spotlight Christian wouldn’t agree to an interview, but when we caught up with her outside the court- house, she claimed the misdemeanor cases she to find missing children was tossing didn’t have victims. CHARLES DAVIS The judge obviously never met Myrna or hose who oppose the public’s right of access stern statements of seeming Virginia. to information are quick to label FOI as fact, challenged only by those with the temerity to More than 1,200 bad-check cases also special interest legislation, a bone thrown oppose their superiors within the halls of govern- were thrown out as part of the docket-clearing Tto the press with little practical application for ment. Fault for the missing children of Florida, and dismissals. the public. Rilya Wilson in particular, was placed squarely Overall, we found Judge Tim Johnson, a In every area beyond the courtroom, the on the shoulders of a Department of Children judge with 14 years on the bench, tossed out courts have held that public records are creatures and Families caseworker and a supervisor – until the most cases with 1,528 speedy-trial dismiss- of legislative mercy rather than constitutional dic- a team of reporters at the South Florida Sun-Sen- als. Fourth-year judge Al Alonso had 1,057 tate – in other words, we enjoy access to public tinel, using FOI to cut through the undergrowth dismissals, followed by seventh-year judge records because the legislature passes freedom of half-truths and outright lies, challenged the Karen Crouch with 920, and Christian with of information laws. Lawmakers support access official line. 802 dismissals. for a variety of reasons, ranging from reformist Megan O’Matz, Sally Kestin, Diana Marrero None of these County Court judges would populism to fear of the electorate, but every time and other reporters and editors at the Sun-Sentinel agree to an on-camera interview, but the senior a government official attempts to control access, made a series of FOI requests that resulted in more judge, Johnson, sent a statement on behalf of all you can bet you’ll hear this line of argument: “The than a dozen hard-hitting stories. In May, June County Court judges: “The cases dismissed in press just wants access to that record to sell papers and July, the newspaper’s coverage painted a fact- Bexar County are dismissed under appropriate and drive ratings.” laden picture of a dysfunctional agency raft with circumstances with the proper procedures and When you hear that refrain, watch out, for the incompetence, apathy and bureaucratic paralysis. are justified both by statutory and case law.” “special interest” of the press is most often the From its early coverage of the Wilson case to its But we found the courthouse crisis unique public interest in knowing what government is dramatic story locating nine of the 24 children to Bexar County. (or is not) doing. listed as missing by the DCF, the reporting of the We checked with the Office of Court A case in point: In Miami last April, Florida missing children of Florida is as compelling an Administration in Austin. Its records showed authorities discovered that a 5-year-old foster example of the public interest served by FOI as the central counties for Houston, Dallas and child named Rilya Wilson had been missing for exists today. Austin combined reported only 129 cases dis- 15 months before the agency reported her disap- “These stories are not written without FOI missed for “lack of a speedy trial” over the last pearance. Florida’s Department of Children and laws,” says Marrero, who continues to work three fiscal years. Bexar County courts report Families came under intense criticism after reports the story. “We could not have gotten the Florida dismissing close to 4,200 cases on speedy trial that 500 foster children were missing. Department of Law Enforcement’s spreadsheet of grounds over the same period. Shortly after the Rilya Wilson case broke, six missing children cases, we could not have gotten “Its very unusual to have such a large number girls, ranging in age from 11 to 15, were found the incident reports, and without those documents, of speedy-trial dismissals,” said Gary Reamey, to have been left in a motel in West Palm Beach, we would have been relying on word of mouth.” a law professor at St. Mary’s University and and they, too, were under the care of the state Without the intervention of the Sun-Sentinel’s expert in speedy-trial case law. “Certainly we agency, the Florida Department of Children and lawyers, the DCF may well have balked at releas- should be taking a very hard look to explain Families. ing the child abduction logs central to the inquiry. to the citizens why this particular right, guar- Following that case, a 1-year-old toddler in The paper was forced to sue for access to the case anteed by the Constitution, is so often being Tampa was found dead on the side of the road on files of the 24 South Florida children. Without violated.” the same day that a state caseworker claimed she the legal sword of the Florida public records law, had gone to visit the boy and his family and that and without a newspaper willing to expend pre- No money or trouble everybody was fine. cious dollars to see the battle through to the end, Courthouse sources explained that the judges these stories would never have seen the light of had created a “speedy-trial docket” in 1999, an Fact-laden picture day. How many more children would have fallen aggressive dismissal procedure. On the docket, In times of crisis, government officials often through the drafty netting of DCF’s system? judges choose cases they want dismissed and dissemble, pick on lower-ranking employees and O’Matz, for one, doesn’t even want to think assign them to attorneys who help get rid of shift the blame. From behind the podium come CONTINUED ON PAGE 42 × them, sometimes hundreds at a time. Charles Davis is executive director of the Freedom of Information Center, an associate professor at the CONTINUED ON PAGE 36 × Missouri School of Journalism and a member of IRE’s First Amendment task force.
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legislature or the governor. Only a court decision can overturn the results. MAPPING FORECASTS Reapportionment – redrawing congres- sional boundaries – must be passed by the legislature, making that process similar to the MANIPULATION OF partisan politics journalists are used to cov- ering. But the 2002 reapportionment found Republicans in control of the House, Senate VOTING DISTRICTS and governor’s office, which meant doom for the Democrats. The stakes were heightened by Pennsyl- BY JAMES E. WILKERSON, vania’s stagnant population over the past CHUCK AYERS decade, which meant that two congressional AND MATT ASSADOF seats would be eliminated. THE (ALLENTOWN, PA.) MORNING CALL Not only did Republicans plan to make Democrats eat that loss, they were maneu- vering the lines so that Democrats lost even ne bitter night in early April 2001, power brokers already were manipulating lines more. Around the time of that April meeting, two Pennsylvania state senators – a in such a way as to do the maximum amount of Republicans were privately crowing that they Republican and a Democrat – sat damage to the other party in the coming year’s could eliminate a total of five Democrats down before a scattered crowd at a redistricting vote. statewide. OBethlehem church building to explain how the “It’s a bloodbath,” Democrat Lisa Boscola Chuck Ayers walked away from that ses- upcoming reapportionment and redistricting predicted to the scattered audience. sion with a renewed appreciation of the power was going to look. She was right. of those kinds of back-room double-dealings, Though Republican Charles Dent insisted In the series “Power Lines: Political and the idea for “Power Lines” was born. during that meeting that the Republican- Deck-Stacking Maps the Future Before You Reporter Matt Assad was recruited for controlled legislature wouldn’t be drawing Vote,” we presented readers with eight stories, the national perspective stories; Ayers would lines “willy-nilly” to attack their Democratic detailed graphics and interactive computer handle the state scene. Computer-assisted colleagues, behind closed doors Republican maps. reporting editor James Wilkerson was added Our goal: To open the collective public eyes to help with mapping and analysis. to the closed-door, back-biting wheeling and First step: Get inside that smoke-filled dealing that goes on during the once-a-decade back room. Matt started tapping national redrawing of political lines. sources, while Ayers hit up contacts in the state leadership. Doomed Democrats Both reporters found the digging more dif- The redrawing of lines is generally regarded ficult than they expected, with even trusted as a tedious process that only political insiders sources reluctant to open up about the shad- could appreciate. We wanted to show that those owy, high-stakes redistricting games. insiders, in behind-the-scenes power-broker- Assad in particular had trouble getting ing, carefully manipulate the voting process congressional map-drawers from the national long before voters get their say at the polls. parties to discuss the behind-the-scenes In trying to do that, we hit an immediate maneuvering. Most feared their words would problem: the complexity of the subject itself. come back to haunt them during the court chal- Though the goal is the same – redistributing lenges certain to be filed by politicians being voters evenly to reflect population changes pushed out of office. from one census to the next – redistricting Eventually, though, Assad was able to and reapportionment are two very different win the trust of a handful of key players after processes. dozens of tedious interviews designed more In Pennsylvania, state House and Senate to build a relationship than uncover facts. One districts are redistricted by a five-member key Republican was interviewed more than commission, which is perhaps the most anti- 20 times before he started to open up about democratic institution tolerated by the state the process. Constitution. It contains two members from At the same time, we researched every map, each party and a fifth, supposedly neutral, every story, every interview and every news representative. The commission’s decisions release we could find – many of them avail- are made law without approval of the full able through advocacy groups found on the
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Internet. In the end, Assad put it all together in a “most-likely” scenario to show what could happen nationally. We never expected to be able to predict the future, but hoped that a very educated guess would illustrate the political strong-arming that was going into the line-drawing process. While Ayers had the advantage of work- ing with sources who often knew and trusted him from past contact, the fluid nature of the negotiations frustrated efforts to map out an exact plan of action. Ayers and Wilkerson initially concentrated on a trusted insider who sat down in several off-the-record sessions and helped draw maps of potential changes. Though we initially planned to map out both House and Senate lines, changes in the smaller House districts were too up in the air for concrete analysis, and focus turned to the easier-to-manage Senate lines. After several sit-downs with our insider, we had a statewide map of potential Senate changes, which Ayers used to leverage input from other insiders. Political lines One of the biggest challenges in the series was in representing and analyzing the poten- tial line changes. The thought of doing that by hand was a nightmare, and wouldn’t allow for the detailed socioeconomic, and political analysis we wanted. Party brokers were doing the work using computerized mapping, and we were able to do that, as well, using Arcview mapping software and Census 2000 data. Arcview also was used to print out base maps, which we took to the officials to help us envision the potential changes they were describing. One insider sat down with colored pencils and drew out the lines for us. Others, we had to draw ourselves using information gained through conversations, a tedious pro- cess that we nonetheless used to build pretty accurate maps. However, the lines that were taking form in those maps only told a small part of the story. Even being the jaded reporters that we are, we were surprised by the level of political maneuvering and backbiting that overshad- owed logic in drawing political lines. That was particularly true on the state level. But we learned early on that there was one guiding principal – incumbent protection for party favorites. In the state redrawing, Demo- CONTINUED ON PAGE 41 ×
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newspaper needed to tell. The story was a hard sell. Death was an SPEEDWAY expected – and accepted – result of racing at speeds topping 100 mph, some editors and SORROW reporters argued. To make it news, you had to Team effort leads to insights answer a seemingly impossible question: How dangerous is racing? on racing fatalities In 1999, tragedy struck again at the Char- lotte track: This time three fans were killed when a tire cleared the catch fence. Critics BY LIZ CHANDLER said the accident might have been avoided if THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER Charlotte had raised its 15-foot-fence after a nearly identical wreck in 1998 killed fans at a he death of Russell Phillips was Michigan speedway. alarming. The 26-year-old youth The moment suggested a chaotic sport that church director was killed in a race for lacked safety standards and regulation. inexperienced racecar drivers. But it’s Schwab lobbied for an investigation. How Twhat happened after the crash that stuck with many drivers and fans die in racing? Could our sports editor, Gary Schwab – and eventually changes make the sport safer? Who’s respon- prompted one of The Charlotte Observer’s most sible for safety? How many deaths – if any significant investigations. – are acceptable in a sport? It was 1995. Phillips was leading the race Schwab persuaded me to “do a little check- at the Charlotte Motor Speedway when another ing” into racing safety. Immediately, it was car veered into him, flipping his car on its side, clear that nobody knew how many people die in and sending it scraping along the catch fence, the sport – not organizers, not government, not shearing off the top. insurance companies. So The Observer decided Phillips’ death was instant and obvious. to count the deaths and see what conclusions Track workers hauled away his body, his car, could be drawn. and washed away his blood. We started with our library manager Marion Web pages, several people could access the Then, 33 minutes later, the race was back on. Paynter, who concocted elaborate search terms database simultaneously. We collected as many The callousness of that moment told Schwab to scour databases for reports of racing deaths as 18 pieces of information about each fatality. something was wrong with racing, an insight that back to 1990. We brought in librarian Sara We gathered the name, age and hometown of would begin to hit other newsrooms in the years Klemmer to help compile as much informa- everybody killed in racing between 1990 and to come. Around the country, sports racing deaths tion as possible about each death. 2001. We also culled more difficult information began to make front-page news again and again We used obvious – and odd – keywords in about their families and circumstances of their after even some of the “professionals” lost their our computer searches. “Freak accident” and fatal wrecks. lives on the track. Racing’s inside story continues “freak deal” turned up stories in newspapers After several months of searching, we to be exposed as journalists uncover more on and on the Web. Repeatedly, we found new turned up more than 200 fatalities during the how the sport is run at all levels, and the true cost deaths by searching for “racing” and the cli- 12-year period. We decided to publish the of high speeds and ineffective equipment. ched phrase: “He died doing what he loved.” name, face and details of every fatality we Many newspapers barely mentioned found. That meant we had to confirm the facts Freak deal on-track deaths in their racing coverage, and collect photos from families and officials We reported the news of Phillips’ death and sometimes only reporting low in a story that familiar with each of the deaths. We needed the poorly conceived race for inexperienced Saturday night’s race “was marred by the death help. drivers. But Schwab remained unsettled. of” some particular racer. One reporter and editor couldn’t tackle that Monday wire briefs about weekend racing Dale Earnhardt’s death in 2001 confirmed research and meet our goal of publishing by the deaths across the country increased Schwab’s – and intensified – our efforts to chronicle end of the 2001 race season – a year defined by discomfort: So many young men dying, leaving racing deaths and the lack of attention to questions about the sport’s safety. behind wives, children and lives of promise. safety at many of America’s 1,300 racetracks. Deputy managing editor Cheryl Carpenter Stock car racing hails from The Observer’s As we talked to families of racers who died, assembled a team of 38 people from across heartland. It’s rooted in the Carolinas’ red clay many were disheartened by Earnhardt’s death the newsroom to work full- or part-time on the hills, where moonshiners once souped up cars but also wondered why no one had looked into project – an exciting commitment for a paper to outrun deputies. It has grown into a huge the deaths of their loved ones. with 250 editorial employees. industry with a Charlotte hub of racing teams, Our computer-assisted reporting guru, Ted We recruited three more reporters: Investi- celebrity drivers and a renowned racetrack. Mellnik, created a database to keep up with the gative reporter Ames Alexander studied racecar The dark side of racing was a story our deaths our searches turned up. By using internal drivers and their qualifications. Feature writer
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Peter St. Onge chased stories of spectator remained fresh, and many wept as they cleared fences. Those fences vary in height deaths. And general assignment writer Diane recounted the violent crashes that killed their from about 9 to 22 feet on oval tracks, Suchetka analyzed rescue response in racing. loved ones. One man watched a car jump an and, typically, 4 to 6 feet on drag strips. In infield guardrail and land on his wife. A couple addition, spectators often are allowed into Eager to talk saw their two young children killed in the high-risk garage and pit areas, typically the Our reporting took us to racetracks of all grandstands. Wives, parents and siblings were least-protected areas. sizes across the country. We studied lawsuits frequently trackside when their relatives crashed • Potentially dangerous drivers are allowed and talked to engineers and medical experts. – and many believed safety improvements could to race. Except in top divisions, drivers The bulk of our job, however, was to reach have prevented the deaths. are rarely screened for experience or health families of people killed in the sport. We After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, how to problems. At least 32 drivers died from wanted their personal stories – as well as the present our story became a significant question. heart attacks while racing, sometimes larger issues they raised. We searched for the proper perspective. We’d hurting other drivers or fans. Children too To help find families, we hired three tem- planned a weeklong series. But given that the young for a driver’s license can race at porary researchers, who took news reports of United States was preparing for military action, many tracks. Drivers with revoked licenses racing wrecks and searched obituaries, next of we worried about committing to a series when or drunken driving convictions are allowed kin, and phone numbers. We also recruited a we knew a steady stream of grim international to compete. dozen sports and bureau reporters to work after news was likely. So we decided to run the entire • Head and neck injuries killed at least half hours contacting families. racing project on one day. the drivers. While a few racing groups now With so many people gathering information, Design director Cory Powell went to work require head restraints, the vast majority of assistant business editor Andrew Shain took to make the most of our reporting and stunning U.S. racers still don’t wear them. over supervising data entry and tracking down photos by Jeff Siner, who put himself close to • Medical response can be inadequate. Emer- each victim’s story. Our database not only held the action to capture impending danger at the gency preparedness varies, depending on the foundation of our story, but also served as track. His photo of five young children standing a track’s size and resources. Some small an organizational tool. Linked to each fatality along a flimsy, 3-foot fence as cars whizzed by tracks provide untrained rescuers and no in our database was the name of the reporter captured the heart of our project. ambulances or fire trucks. assigned to investigate the case – as well as Photography director Susan Gilbert consis- Racing officials were surprised by our the status of their interviews and efforts to tently lobbied for a healthy proportion – and numbers. Most guessed the death toll would collect photos. great play – of pictures in our package. Graphic be half of what we found. Some families were easy to find, others artist David Puckett, working with art director Jo Several top-level racing groups pledged weren’t. Armed with obituary information, Miller, created a full-page illustration of dangers to start collecting data to look for safety we used a variety of people-finding databases at a racetrack. And Ted Mellnik built an online problems. Officials worried the government – including Lexis-Nexis and AutoTrack – to presence for the project. might intervene if the industry didn’t set new locate relatives of drivers, track workers and In November 2001, The Observer published safety standards. The International Council for fans who were killed. In one case, it took three a 16-page special section titled “Death at The Motorsport Safety requested the Observer’s weeks and dozens of phone calls to find the Track: Racing’s Human Toll.” database as a starting point for industry-wide widow of a North Carolina driver killed in research. 1997, a contact made only with the help of the Patterns emerge Several elite racing groups also man- drivers’ first-grade teacher and veterinarian. Our study found at least 260 people died dated head restraints. Smaller organizations Families were eager to talk. Their pain in U.S. auto racing between 1990 and 2001. requested copies of our series to help educate Among them were 29 drivers. spectators, including Media nationally cite our statistics, and The five children, and two Observer continues to follow racing deaths. dozen track workers By July’s end, at least 287 people died in U.S. and crew. racing since 1990. Our report – coupled with By scrutinizing The Orlando Sentinel’s fine work on NASCAR our database, we safety just before Earnhardt’s death – pushed found patterns that the industry to look more closely at safety.
Jeff Siner The Charlotte Observer Charlotte The Siner Jeff plague racing. Among them: Liz Chandler is an award-winning investigative • Fences and barri- reporter at The Charlotte Observer. Her work ers regularly fail. has examined the tobacco settlement, capital punishment, auto racing, gender inequity in In addition to the college sports, and questionable behavior by 29 spectator deaths, Charlotte’s former NBA team owner. She also at least 70 people was a lead reporter for a crime series that Children line the fence in the infield-pit area at Carolina Speedway near Gastonia, were injured when became a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize. N.C., as the cars race by. car parts and debris She is currently on a Nieman Fellowship.
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Justice dismissed dismissed. They also handpick attorneys to help CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31 dismiss them. One lawyer, who asked not to be “To do it on a wholesale basis, without indi- identified in our story, described the dismissal vidual investigation of the facts of each of those process. cases, in my opinion, is usually inappropriate,” “With some small argument, the prosecutor Reamey said. lightly objects, but then the judge grants all the We also found that in many cases the orders, notes the files, and the cases are over,” defendants were nowhere to be found and had explained the anonymous attorney. He says a warrants out for their arrest. judge handed him 25 cases he wanted thrown “We don’t believe we should reward anyone out. for being a fugitive from justice,” said Susan We asked the attorney if he ever met the Reed, Bexar County District Attorney. “We’ve defendants or even looked in their case files. objected to the dismissals.” “Never,” the attorney answered. “It didn’t She added that accused criminals give up seem like it was required or necessary. The their right to speedy trials when they don’t show whole process was: ‘file your motion, come to up for court. court, get the case over with and get it off my For taxpayers, we found another concern. docket.’” We obtained electronic payment records from This attorney received $500 for what he says the Bexar County Auditor’s Office. This data equaled an hour of work. Other attorneys made details how much money each court-appointed as much as $1,000 per bundle of 25 cases they attorney made in each court, case by case, for the helped dismiss. past five years. With the “case number” field as Because of our investigation, the county the unique identifier, we matched the payment commissioners met to propose plans to stop records with the speedy-trial dismissals for judges from spending public funds dismissing the three-year period. We soon realized Bexar cases and letting accused criminals go free. The County Criminal Court judges were spending commissioners created a task force to come thousands and thousands of public dollars to get up with some recommendations. The sug- rid of cases never even heard in court. gestions include: court coordinators and the By joining and comparing the court records County Warrants Division working together to data table and the attorney payment records table make sure warrants are being served; judges we discovered more than $100,000 in taxpayer and the district attorney checking caseloads in money spent by judges appointing criminal criminal courts to make sure cases are heard cases on the speedy-trial docket. Christian was in a timely manner; and fugitives being picked tops in this category, spending $28,076. Alonso up when getting a marriage license, car regis- spent $21,446, while Crouch spent $17,623 on tration, etc. appointed attorneys. Also, local interest groups filed complaints Christian defended her actions, saying she’s with the Texas Commission on Judicial Con- doing the taxpayers a favor. “It costs taxpayers duct asking them to investigate and publicly money to maintain those cases and the clerks to reprimand the judges. The commission will not maintain those active warrants,” she said. “It costs confirm or deny any investigation in progress. thousands and thousands of dollars.” Crime victims and county officials thanked us Still we noted that she and other judges could for our exhaustive efforts uncovering this prob- have asked the district attorney’s office to dismiss lem. We’ve produced several stories from this the cases at no cost to taxpayers. data and found it to be a valuable resource in the District Attorney Susan Reed says she newsroom for enterprise reporting and daily use. wouldn’t dismiss the cases anyway because it The key is doing one story at a time and staying costs nothing to keep the cases open. focused. And when requesting and negotiating “They have created an aggressive dismissal for data, never back down, matter how long the docket. There is really, in my opinion, no need to process may take. be aggressive because if the case sits, it doesn’t cost anyone any money or any trouble,” Reed Joe Ellis is the investigative producer and Brian said. Collister the investigative reporter for KMOL - We found that basically the judges bypass San Antonio. They and the News 4 TroubleShooters have won numerous awards and prompted many the D.A.’s office and handpick cases they want changes in state and local government.
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Illegal campaigning Inequality in sports In hindsight, the applause from young women CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19 and their parents is gratifying, but the sheer grind coordinate donations to Republican Assembly Never trust budgets. In a pilot survey of 25 of producing a comprehensive Title IX story will candidates. schools, we compared the budgeted spending for test the patience of reporters and editors alike. If • Democratic staffers routinely solicited cam- female teams compared to actual expenditures. your readers want to follow the money, it might paign contributions or were pressured to make They were off by more than 70 percent. ADs rou- take months to simply record the data needed to political donations while on duty at the Capitol, tinely shift spending throughout the year from girls get started, much less flesh out the stories that give despite a state law that specifically prohibits to boys, especially to football. School officials will the figures meaning. such activities. try to tell you that budgets “are pretty close to the We also lost valuable time by failing to bring • The Assembly’s top leader, Speaker Scott Jensen, real spending.” Don’t believe the hype. the graphics and computer systems pros in early. R-Brookfield, has been personally involved in Talk to girls. Teenagers are often, like, maligned My reporting was bogged down by the need to the use of state resources to run Republican as bad interviews because, like, they’re, like, kids, input the data from the schools. campaigns at least since 1996. and stuff. But ask a young woman to detail how To save time and toil, hire two data entry clerks In January 2002, the State Journal and the she’s treated compared to boys in her school and to key the same entries. A temp brought in late Milwaukee Journal Sentinel joined a lawsuit filed she becomes an erudite, poignant chronicler of in the process made mistakes – like any person by Madison’s afternoon newspaper, the Capital daily discrimination. Adolescents are hypersensi- – and I had to uncover the errors while doing the Times, for copies of all of the caucus legal bills. tive about how they stack up against their peers, math in Excel. In the end, I probably retyped 90 After some legal maneuvers, including an attempt and they don’t mind talking about it. percent of the temp’s work. Double entry would to gag the press from writing about the case, the Coaches and referees, however, remain depen- have proved an easy way to catch mistakes – and clerks of the Assembly and Senate agreed in early dent on mercurial athletic directors for their pay saved hours better earmarked for sleep. May of this year to turn over copies of the bills. and often prove reluctant to say on the record what The bills showed that taxpayers had shelled they truly feel. Parents often have a grudge against Carl Prine began working on special projects for the out more than $500,000 in legal fees to represent a coach or AD, so be careful of their motives. Talk Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in 2000. Before joining five lawmakers and 59 staffers in the investiga- to the girls first. the Tribune-Review, he was a reporter for the Daily tion. That number has grown to include 63 Reporter in Greenfield, Ind. He has won numerous staffers. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth Defend your stories awards and has worked as a freelance correspon- dent in Africa for The Christian Science Monitor of bills still await payment. Hours after the bills Be prepared to defend the stories in your own and other publications. were released, leading attorney general candidate newsroom. You might need to explain to sports Sen. Brian Burke announced he was abandoning reporters how the numbers in your database belie his campaign and would not seek re-election to statements from sources they respect. Coaches, in the Senate. fact, might ask them to help kill your stories, or at On June 26, the first charges were filed as a least nix scrutiny of big programs. Don’t give in. result of the caucus investigation. Burke, a Mil- We were helped by Hall of Fame football waukee Democrat, was charged with 18 criminal coaches who believed strongly that kids should counts, primarily misconduct in public office, for be treated equally, regardless of gender, and they allegedly using his Senate staff for campaign work, weren’t reluctant to scold their colleagues. Many soliciting contributions at his Capitol office, with- athletic directors know more about federal dis- holding and altering documents under subpoena crimination law than the Title IX “coordinators” and falsifying expense accounts. Two aides were in their schools, and they can become allies when accused of lesser offenses. you need to sell the story to your editors. More charges are expected in the investigation, It will help also to focus on the positive along which has broadened to include allegations that the way. We found nearly a dozen schools where lawmakers traded action on legislation in exchange Title IX worked. Girls and boys had equal chances for campaign contributions. So far, 21 legislative to play in sports. If an official told me he didn’t staffers and two political fund-raisers have been have the time or money to expand female sports, granted immunity from prosecution in the criminal I could always point to a poor, rural or city school probe. Among them: Jake Wittwer of the Assembly that managed to do it, simply because they tried. Democratic Caucus. You will find yourself becoming an expert on gender law, high school sports, the education beat Dee J. Hall is a general assignment reporter for the and number crunching. At the end of this project, if Wisconsin State Journal. “Caucuses: Secret Cam- you know how many umpires ref a junior varsity paign Machines” won top honors in the Society of softball game, as well as the difference between Professional Journalists’ investigative reporting cat- mean, mode and standard deviation, then you’re egory for newspapers under 100,000 circulation. on the right track.
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School food School officials also may do inspections and Oscar Munoz, whose Chicago tortilla plant CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11 compile reports. Chicago school officials were was linked to 1,200 school illnesses in seven involving willful misconduct. able to provide records of only 16 school- states. No government food safety agency • What about the cleanliness of school caf- food outbreaks since 1999. But the Chicago inspected Munoz’s unmarked factory during eterias? Department of Public Health documented 41 the eight months in 1998 when it produced Here is the last but possibly most important suspected food poisoning incidents through the tortillas implicated in those outbreaks. part of the story: When food-borne illness schools in which at least 215 children were The best-intentioned school cafeteria manag- outbreaks occur, the problem may lie not in sickened. State and federal officials were noti- ers had no way of knowing what they were the manufacturing plants, but in unsanitary fied of none of the Chicago cases. feeding their children. practices in the kitchens and cafeterias where To make the information hunt a little more Munoz and his company faced no govern- meals are heated and served. To document this complicated, your district’s school cafeterias ment sanctions. Following a flurry of inspec- final link in the food chain, the reporter must may be run by private contractors. A growing tions prompted by the 1998 outbreak, his eat a lot of little lunches. number of U.S. school districts – especially factory was not visited by any government I asked the Chicago Department of Public those that serve poor children – are turning food safety agency from the summer of 1999 Health to allow me to review every inspection to global food management conglomerates until the publication of our report, although it report on every school kitchen or cafeteria for such as Sodexho Inc. or Compass Group. continued to supply school food programs. two years. The thousands of pages of hand- Run the same records checks for these giant After the 1998 outbreaks, Munoz contracted written reports showed rodent infestation in companies and obtain copies of government with a new school food supplier, Que Tal? more than a quarter of the city’s school lunch- contracts and correspondence. Inc. That company closed down last year rooms and kitchens, chips of lead-based paint • Is it worth the work? after recalling school lunch burritos sent to floating down on cooking pans, and walls The investigative reporter’s job is not simply five states because samples tested positive for slicked with chronic grime. Frozen entrees to chronicle sweeping, oceanic social trends, the Listeria pathogen. wrapped in cellophane were warmed and like the rising number of school-food illness David Jackson is a reporter for the Chicago left to sit for hours in plastic containers that outbreaks. It is to identify the people who Tribune. During a stint at The Washington Post, he did not hold a safe temperature. Children’s drive these seemingly impersonal forces. I shared the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for public service. illness complaints were mishandled and consider the central achievement of the report- At the Tribune, his work was a Pulitzer finalist in brushed aside. ing to be its profile of food industry veteran 1996 and 2000. Chris Walker Chicago Tribune Chicago Walker Chris
Lunchroom workers unload shipping boxes full of hot turkey and mashed potatoes at an elementary school. The meals were cooked earlier and shipped from a high school.
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Fake IDs LEGAL CORNER
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8 More recently, eight driver-testing centers Gagging the news: were shut to boost security, and the state DMV director began replacing most of the private agents Courts limit media reporting who run DMV offices around the state. The new agents are under orders to fire workers suspected of participating in license or title fraud. by silencing trial participants
State officials are building criminal and RACHEL MATTEO-BOEHM administrative cases against suspect workers, n recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court lished an article about the and in June, a state grand jury indicted 36 people and other appellate courts have appeared upcoming trial – the first in driver’s license schemes – including eight who to strengthen the public’s right to remain article about the case in worked for the DMV. Ifully informed about judicial proceedings. But 16 months. Based on that Eradicating license fraud – and ending corrup- the promise of these cases remains unfulfilled, one article, the trial court tion in the DMV – are now priorities. Police inves- at least in California. While recognizing that granted a defense request tigators tell us our details and descriptions were on higher court decisions severely restrict their for a sweeping gag order target – one even asked about our sources. ability to exclude the public and the press from that precluded the par- Two days after the corruption piece ran in courtroom proceedings and to seal records, trial ties, attorneys, judicial ROGER MYERS May, we got a call from a dealer who’d pre- courts in California are utilizing other tools to employees, law enforce- dicted months earlier that we would never get limit the amount of information available to the ment officers and others from saying virtually the story. public about noteworthy criminal cases. anything about the case outside the courtroom. “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed. “You guys In recent years, state courts have imposed The order was interpreted by those subject to it really got it all.” gag orders or other significant restraints on as not only preventing them from speaking with information in virtually every high-profile the Chronicle’s reporter, but also from providing Jean Rimbach is a senior writer at The (Bergen, criminal case tried in the San Francisco Bay the reporter with copies of documents in the N.J.) Record. She has covered a wide range of topics, Area. These gag orders – prior restraints not on case, including photographs of Elijah. The court including education, juvenile justice and child wel- the media directly, but on the trial participants, denied the Chronicle’s motion to lift or modify fare. Monsy Alvarado has been a municipal reporter since 1997. law enforcement, court personnel and others the order on the grounds that the Supreme Court, – are being imposed based on outdated author- in the sensational 1966 case against Dr. Sam ity and under a less-rigorous standard than the Sheppard, had imposed a “duty” on trial courts compelling-interest test that must be met for to issue such orders in any case that attracts Murky waters closing hearings and sealing records. Often, publicity. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16 these orders also have provisions that have the The second case was from Marin County, methods some airports have used to capture their effect of sealing various records in the case. where Winnifred Wright and four female waste. Unfortunately, the California Supreme companions were charged with second-degree Although the stories clearly sparked change, Court recently declined petitions by several murder, manslaughter, child endangerment and the airport executives have tightened the clamps media organizations seeking review of such abuse after a 19-month-boy died in their care. on information in recent months. We’ve tried to orders in two murder cases, both arising out Authorities then found that the 12 other children follow up, but have been denied access to many of the deaths of young children. As a result, in their “family” suffered from malnutrition of the same documents – water-testing results and these types of restrictions on access are likely and, in some cases, rickets. Not surprisingly, correspondence about plumbing problems – they to continue. the case attracted considerable publicity early allowed us to review late last year. They cited one on. The parties sought both a broad gag order of the few exemptions allowed under Texas’ strong Trial courts claim “duty” similar to the one imposed in the Goodman public information laws – pending litigation. The first case before the state Supreme case and a “temporary” seal on the grand jury The airport asked the Texas attorney general’s Court arose out of San Francisco, where Pat- transcript and other records until the defendants office to issue a legal opinion on whether it rick Goodman was charged with first-degree filed motions (four months later) to dismiss should release the information. We’re awaiting murder in the death of Elijah Sanderson, a the indictment and to seal those records (and the ruling. 3-year-old. The boy died from what the city’s more) through trial. The Chronicle – joined medical examiner called the worst case of child at various points by the Associated Press, Los Miles Moffeit is the senior reporter on the Fort abuse he had ever seen. As the jury was being Angeles Times and Marin Independent Journal Worth Star-Telegram investigative team. He has impaneled, the San Francisco Chronicle pub- CONTINUED ON PAGE 41 × worked for the newspaper for the past six years, specializing in government and development issues. Roger Myers heads the media law practice group at Steinhart & Falconer LLP in San Francisco, where Gordon Dickson covers transportation for the news- Rachel Matteo-Boehm is an associate. This column is based on an article that first appeared in the Libel paper, where he has worked for five years. Defense Resource Center Media Law Letter for September 2002.
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Books or “squealer.” Case in point from Nader’s own life: As he CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17 His ambitious plan was “to invest the gained attention as an auto safety advocate, did as much to cultivate the image and the real- neutral term with positive associations such Nader began to sense that somebody was spying ity of whistleblowing as anybody alive. as honor, rectitude and civic-mindedness,” on him. He told professional colleagues, friends, As Martin explains, “Nader developed a kind Martin explains. In January 1971, Nader held journalists of his suspicions. They dismissed his of corporate cosmology. It held that those who a conference on whistleblowing, then helped concerns. Nader under surveillance? Nader’s climb to the top often do so through steely ambi- institutionalize the practice by creating an personal life being explored by enemies? Nader tion, shedding their principles along the way. organization to which whistleblowers could being subjected to entrapment efforts by unfa- That leaves the ranks below full of frustrated turn. Nader called it the Clearinghouse for miliar, sexy female operatives? Nah, no way. He idealists. They know better but are forced to look Professional Responsibility. Journalists began seemed neurotic, maybe even paranoid. on helplessly as their superiors set the agenda, tapping into the Nader-inspired whistleblower But a couple of journalists listened to Nader’s churning out shoddy goods, perhaps polluting, community more and more. suspicions. Martin’s biography explains clearly or even subjecting their own employees to As Martin explains how Nader became and compellingly how Nader worked with now hazardous conditions. The conscience of an a relentless force for change across govern- legendary investigative reporters Morton Mintz organization, in Nader’s view, resides with ment and the corporate sector, he includes and later James Ridgeway to prove that General those at the midlevel and below.” lucid insights on the workings of legislatures, Motors hired private detectives to discredit the Semantic alchemy is one of Nader’s con- regulatory agencies, the courts, lobbyists and reformer. What started as the unverified hunch tributions to the whistleblowing phenomenon. the executive suites. of a seemingly nutty source turned into an Such activity carried a negative connotation in Amid so many lessons, it is taxing to identify important expose. the minds of many, who viewed whistleblow- the most valuable of all. A strong contender is ers as whiners or ingrates. Nader found a way the lesson that sources who seem neurotic or Steve Weinberg is senior contributing editor to to substitute the more-or-less neutral term even paranoid should rarely be dismissed with- The IRE Journal and a former executive direc- tor of IRE. “whistleblower” for “informer” or “snitch” out some checking.
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Legal corner might result – and the post-1980 authority, the Marin County Superior Court as a green CONTINUED FROM PAGE 39 which rejected the reasonable likelihood of light to further restrict the public’s right of – intervened to oppose the motions. Although prejudice standard and shifted the presump- access. On September 3, the Marin County the parties presented no evidence other than tion in favor of access. court issued an order sealing all of the mean- copies of articles, the trial court granted the gag After the appellate court refused to hear the ingful records in the case, including all five and “temporary” sealing orders, again largely petitions or to clarify the standards that must volumes of the grand jury transcript, search on the basis of the Sheppard case. be met for imposing gag orders on trial partici- warrant documents, and motions by the defen- pants, the media filed petitions for review in dants challenging the indictment and seeking Higher courts refuse to intervene each case with the California Supreme Court. to suppress evidence. Noting that the trial courts were relying on The media pointed out that the state’s high The trial court based its latest order on its 35-year-old authority decided long before the court had not addressed gag orders since 1978 belief that any right of access to the records is Supreme Court in 1980 recognized the impor- – when it appeared to apply a standard incon- statutory, not constitutional, and that the ability tance of access to information about criminal sistent with post-1980 law – and that review to access articles on the Internet had changed cases (and established a First Amendment right was necessary to provide lower courts with the sealing analysis by allowing the court to protecting that access), the AP, Chronicle and clear guidance as to standards that must be met presume that potential jurors are reading the Independent-Journal filed a consolidated peti- before such gag orders may be imposed coverage (thereby, in the court’s view, mooting tion for writ of mandate in the Court of Appeal Unfortunately, the Supreme Court on the need for defendants to show that the cover- seeking review of the gag orders imposed in August 21 also denied review. Only one of age was widely circulated in, and prejudicing, the Goodman and Wright cases. The media’s the court’s seven justices, Ming Chin, favored a large percentage of the jury pool). The media petition described the tension between the review of either case, three short of the votes intend to appeal this ruling. But even if the pre-1980 authority – with its presumption necessary for review to be granted. Court of Appeal reverses the sealing order, the against access to information whenever a court The failure of the Court of Appeal or the standard for imposing prior restraints in the thought a reasonable likelihood of prejudice Supreme Court to intervene was viewed by form of gag orders will remain unresolved.
Power lines had at the time. to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33 In the end, we forecast that Republicans to be impossible. We were unable to convince crats didn’t want to lose ground and Republi- would receive a windfall of four to six House any Republican insiders to share computerized cans wanted to expand their ranks. But those of Representatives seats. We believe the series maps-in-progress with us, and found that trying on both sides who hadn’t toed the party line to be the first in the country to take a compre- to draw those small districts from the vague were often fed to the wolves. hensive look at current reapportionment and descriptions of insiders just wasn’t feasible. State Rep. John Lawless, a Democrat, redistricting. Instead, we concentrated on the districts in our became one such example when his district was coverage area only. carved out from beneath him. He was pushed Public interest When it came down to trying to represent into a district outside of his Norristown roots, Did we achieve our goal of educating the the changes in print, we chose a single map leaving him extremely vulnerable during the public? That’s a matter of conjecture. Reaction with counties, municipalities and current and next election. to the story was muted, but it was widely read proposed lines. The final product was difficult On the congressional side, Republicans – half the politicians in Harrisburg were carry- to interpret, although it was certainly legible. took the opportunity to pit powerful Demo- ing the stories around in their briefcases, and We would have preferred separate maps, had crats against each other, unconcerned with the initial Pennsylvania congressional lines, space allowed. who won, as long as one more Democrat was approved six months after our stories ran, were But in the end, we feel satisfied that we did eliminated. drawn almost exactly where we predicted. a thorough and fair job of documenting the On the national level, Assad was surprised We do feel certain that the series helped political sausage-making that goes into shaping to see how coldly precise and clinical the pro- generate public interest in the redistricting elections long before voters get anywhere close cess of determining districts had become. Ana- process. For example, more people from the to the voting booths. lysts approached the process as vote-shuffling, Lehigh Valley presented testimony to the and in many cases, the politicians themselves state Legislative Reapportionment Commis- James E. Wilkerson is the computer-assisted didn’t seem to be included in the equation, as sion than any other region in the state. We reporting editor at The Morning Call. Chuck Ayers has been a reporter there for 20 years, if they were interchangeable pawns. like to think that some of that interest was due working throughout the paper’s nine-county We also were surprised to find that Pennsyl- to our series. region in eastern Pennsylvania. He currently vania was expected to have one of the biggest There were, however, a few goals we did covers the Bethlehem city beat. Matt Assad is a swings of congressional power in the country, not achieve. Most significantly, we found general assignment and special projects writer due to the overwhelming control Republicans drawing statewide maps for potential changes in the Bethlehem bureau.
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Member News IRE SERVICES
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS AND EDITORS, INC. is a grassroots nonprofit organization Sherry, who just completed graduate studies at dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting within the field of journal- ism. IRE was formed in 1975 with the intent of creating a networking tool and a forum in the Missouri School of Journalism is now report- which journalists from across the country could raise questions and exchange ideas. IRE ing on transportation issues for Congressional provides educational services to reporters, editors and others interested in investigative Quarterly’s CQ Weekly. El Paso Times reporter reporting and works to maintain high professional standards. Jennifer Shubinski was selected as a winner Programs and Services: in the 2002 Native Media Awards for “The Roll IRE RESOURCE CENTER – A rich reserve of print and broadcast stories, tipsheets and guides to help of the Dice,” her story on the Tigua Indians. The you start and complete the best work of your career. This unique library is the starting point of any Native American Journalists Association hon- piece you’re working on. You can search through abstracts of more than 19,000 investigative reporting ored Shubinski’s piece as the best print news stories through our Web site. story by an individual non-native. Kirsten Contact: Carolyn Edds, [email protected], 573-882-3364 Haukebo Tagami has joined The Atlanta DATABASE LIBRARY – Administered by IRE and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. Journal-Constitution, where she is covering The library has copies of many government databases, and makes them available to news organizations at or below actual cost. Analysis services are available on these databases, as is help in deciphering aviation for the business desk. She had been records you obtain yourself. a business reporter at The Courier-Journal in Contact: Jeff Porter, [email protected], 573-882-1982 Louisville, Ky. Scott Thomsen has moved to CAMPAIGN FINANCE INFORMATION CENTER – Administered by IRE and the National Institute for Seattle as news editor for The Associated Press. Computer-Assisted Reporting. It’s dedicated to helping journalists uncover the campaign money He had been an AP staff writer in Phoenix. trail. State campaign finance data is collected from across the nation, cleaned and made available to Jodi Upton, a special projects reporter for The journalists. A search engine allows reporters to track political cash flow across several states in federal Detroit News, was awarded a Knight Fellow- and state races. ship at Stanford University for the 2002-2003 Contact: Brant Houston, [email protected], 573-882-2042 academic year. Upton is concentrating on ON-THE-ROAD TRAINING – As a top promoter of journalism education, IRE offers loads of train- the state of the art of educational testing. ing opportunities throughout the year. Possibilities range from national conferences and regional workshops to weeklong boot camps and on-site newsroom training. Costs are on a sliding scale and fellowships are available to many of the events. FOI report Contact: Ron Nixon, [email protected], 573-882-2042
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31 Publications about it. THE IRE JOURNAL – Published six times a year. Contains journalist profiles, how-to stories, reviews, “What’s truly frightening is to realize that in investigative ideas and backgrounding tips. The Journal also provides members with the latest news other states with weaker FOI laws, these stories on upcoming events and training opportunities from IRE and NICAR. are sitting untold,” she says. Contact: Len Bruzzese, [email protected], 573-882-2042 UPLINK – Monthly newsletter by IRE and NICAR on computer-assisted reporting. Often, Uplink stories Still missing are written after reporters have had particular success using data to investigate stories. The columns Statewide, the department cannot account include valuable information on advanced database techniques as well as success stories written by for 532 children missing from the child welfare newly trained CAR reporters. system. Contact: David Herzog, [email protected], 573-882-2127 A task force, headed by police, recently con- cluded that the missing children problem was REPORTER.ORG – A collection of Web-based resources for journalists, journalism educators and others. exaggerated. Its report justified that assertion Discounted Web hosting and services such as mailing list management and site development are because many of the nearly 400 children the provided to other nonprofit journalism organizations. agency still can’t account for are either runaways Contact: Ted Peterson, [email protected], 573-884-7321 or were taken without permission by relatives. For information on: Buried in the task force report is the fact that ADVERTISING – Pia Christensen, [email protected], 573-884-2175 the task force has identified the whereabouts of MEMBERSHIP AND SUBSCRIPTIONS – John Green, [email protected], 573-882-2772 less than half of the missing children. Where CONFERENCES AND BOOT CAMPS – Ev Ruch-Graham, [email protected], 573-882-8969 are the rest? LISTSERVS – Ted Peterson, [email protected], 573-884-7321 Thanks to FOI laws, the Sun-Sentinel and other Florida reporters, we may one day find Mailing Address: out. IRE, 138 Neff Annex, Missouri School of Journalism, Columbia, MO 65211
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