An update on watchdog reporting around the U.S.

By Alex Kingsbury
akingsbury@niemanwatchdog.org

Investigative Reporters and Editors  (IRE) regularly highlights work by the country's top watchdog reporters in an online feature called Extra!Extra! Here's a digest of some of the most compelling investigative journalism as catalogued by IRE.

Dangerous cargo moves by rail
The Riverside, Cal. Press-Enterprise investigated the contents of freight rail through their city in an excellent investigative series. "The April 4 wreck was described to the public as a routine derailment, but documents obtained by The Press-Enterprise through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal an array of problems, from ineffective track nspections to a mishandled evacuation," according to a story by P-E staffers Phil Pitchford, Ben Goad, David Danelski and Mark Kawar.

"The accident is a case study of risks that escalate each year in the Inland area as freight train traffic and population grow side by side. It also raises questions about whether communities are prepared for a rail disaster."

The eight-part series, which took the team of four writers and two editors several months, includes multimedia presentations, photographs, audio recordings from 911 calls, videos, and interactive graphics presentations.

"The trick was to get things rolling with FOIA requests early on and then do the nuts and bolts reporting while we waited for the documents to come through,"  Goad told me in an interview. "The response has been very positive and we are even starting to see interest from readers in other states who are also dealing with these issues."

College paper uncovers fraud and abuse
Oklahoma State University senior John Estus says it was an off-hand remark by a retiring city official that prompted his eight-week investigation for the Daily O'Collegian. He found that "nearly $110,000 in federal funds intended to help poor Stillwater residents buy homes of their own was given to middle-class buyers who did not qualify to receive the money."

The story prompted the state commerce department to launch an immediate audit of the program and could require the city, not the loan recipients, to repay the money to the state, Estus writes.

In addition, the program "gave nearly $39,000 in city funds not regulated by federal guidelines to homebuyers who would not have qualified as low-income if the rules had been applied. Among those buyers was the Homebuyer Assistance administrator, Shannon Morris, who received nearly $1,200 to help buy her $71,800 home even though she was $10,000 over what a federal oversight agency defined as low-income."

Estus, a journalism student and the former features editor at the paper, told me in a telephone interview that the story changed his outlook on the craft of investigative reporting. "Being able to use state open records laws to find out what is actually going on is important," he said. "It's journalism that matters."

Serious crime in DC area schools
Washington, DC, Examiner staff writer Jonathan Marino drafted a lede sure to catch the eye of any school-aged child's parent.

"When parents send their children to school each day, the last thing they expect is that their child will be beaten, raped or stabbed," he wrote in the first of his five-part series. "But thousands of Montgomery County Public Schools internal reports, dozens of court records, and interviews with educators, parents and law enforcement officials tell troubling stories of abuse - and reveal hundreds of cases where some principals failed to follow up on serious incidents."

The series found instances of sexual assaults, including rape, in Washington, D.C., area schools.

After the first installment ran, the school system announced changes in the way serious crimes would be reported. “Next year - nearly 15 years after the initial reporting system was launched - [School Superintendent Jerry] Weast plans to complete a head-to-toe makeover of the school system's serious incident database," Marino wrote. "The school system is rushing to implement a trial system for a few schools as a test before the computerized tracking method goes countywide."

Roller Coaster Safety
The deaths of two young children on theme park rides prompted an investigation by Florida Today and its television partner, WKMG-Local 6. For their stories, reporters used a 3-axis accelerometer, "a device used to measure G-forces from all the angles that a twisting, turning roller coaster can throw at a rider."

Their results: "Data show they're safe – for healthy people."

Subsequent articles in the series found that the state "regulates ride safety for carnivals and fairs. But big theme parks like Walt Disney World, SeaWorld Orlando and Universal Studios are exempt from state inspections and oversight."

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