An update on American watchdog reporting

SHOWCASE | May 122, 2006

Investigative reporters examine church abuse, mine safety, and the new face of cybercrime.

By Alex Kingsbury
akingsbury@niemanwatchdog.org

Investigative Reporters and Editors regularly skims off the crème de la crème of American watchdog reporting to feature in an online package called Extra!Extra! Here's a fat-free digest of some of those compelling stories.

Church report understates abuse
Los Angeles times writers Jean Guccione and William Lobdell found that a report to LA Catholics about abuse, issued by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, was less than forthcoming. Their story found that the report, entitled People of God, left out "11 other priests in ministry for periods up to 13 years after parishioners raised concerns about inappropriate behavior with children."

The reports analyzed summaries of personnel records written and posted on a public website by the archdiocese. They found that "seven of these 11 cases were not detailed in the People of God report. The other four were mentioned incompletely; the report said they were removed when complaints were lodged but did not disclose that the Los Angeles Archdiocese had received earlier reports of misconduct."

"Mahony has fought to keep from releasing full personnel files either to prosecutors or plaintiffs' lawyers in the civil cases," the story says. "On Monday, however, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a California appellate court ruling requiring him to hand over to prosecutors the files of two priests who are under criminal investigation."

Internet security
USA Today reporters Byron Acohido and Jon Swart detail an "ominous shift in the struggle to keep the Internet secure" in their report on Cybercrime. It is a problem that has grown more serious as our dependence on computer networks has increased.

"Cybercrime undergirded by networks of bots — PCs infected with malicious software that allows them to be controlled by an attacker — is soaring," write Acohido and Swart.

Illustrating the problem with recent court cases, the reporters also talk with security experts about the rapidly growing criminal enterprise. "Security giant McAfee detected 28,000 distinct bot networks active last year, more than triple the amount in 2004. And a February survey of 123 tech executives, conducted by security firm nCircle, pegged annual losses to U.S.. businesses because of computer-related crimes at $197 billion."

But the isolated cases highlighted in the article are but the tip of the digital iceberg. They "represent mere flickers in the Internet underworld. More elite hackers collaborating with organized crime groups take pains to cover their tracks — and rarely get caught."

Mine disaster might have been avoided
Reporter Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail writes that "five days before the Sago Mine disaster, company officials found increasing levels of methane in and around a sealed area of the mine where the Jan. 2 explosion is believed to have occurred."

His story chronicles the investigation into the deadly mine tragedy and the federal investigation into its causes. "Mine safety experts now say the Sago test results appear to have been a warning that — if heeded — might have helped prevent West Virginia's worst mining disaster in nearly 40 years," he writes. "Sago officials dismissed the methane sampling, and took no preventative steps."

Autoparts execs travel in style while company tanks
While workers get laid off and plants get shuttered, executives from auto parts maker Delphi continue to travel in luxury, according to an investigation by WXYZ reporter Steve Wilson. The company's financial woes haven't "slowed down CEO Steve Miller from being squired around town in the backseat of a top-of-the-line BMW, symbolism that American autoworkers find particularly galling," Wilson writes. Wilson caught Miller in the backseat of said Beamer "leased by Delphi being chauffeured home after just stepping off a private jet from Switzerland. He hitched a ride there and back with the CEO at another bankrupt auto supplier, Federal Mogul, on its corporate jet."

"Just last month Mogul's CEO, José Maria Alapont, told workers things are so bad 25 plants may be shut and 10% of the workforce laid off," Wilson writes... "Yet to fly the corporate jet from Detroit to Switzerland and back costs around $80,000, the price of a dozen first class tickets."

Wilson's report also probes claims by the auto parts maker. "While Delphi claims its most-senior American workers like Gregg Shotwell earn more than $70 an hour, the truth is even counting all the benefits, it's closer to maybe $50 an hour."

Moreover, he writes that workers say that "the CEO's pledge to work for a dollar a year is nothing more than a PR ploy after Miller collected a $3 million sign-on bonus and nearly a million more in paychecks for just six month's work last year."

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