Reporter Hannah Dreier’s investigation into the wide resurgence of child labor in the United States began with a simple question: As more unaccompanied migrant children began crossing the border than ever before, where were they all going? In this 20-month long investigation, Dreier uncovered a culture of careless disregard for child labor laws at construction sites, slaughterhouses and in factories across the country and a “chain of willful ignorance” at every point in the system meant to protect children from exploitation. Dreier earned the trust of hundreds of migrant children, federal contractors, investigators and auditors, government social workers, and sources at the highest levels of the White House and federal agencies to bring the truth to light. The impact of her investigation was swift and prompted immediate reforms across state and federal agencies as well as dozens of major corporations and brands.
Denied by AI: How big insurers use algorithms to cut off care for Medicare Advantage patients
Following a tip from an employee at a small nursing home, STAT reporters Casey Ross and Bob Herman relied on internal sources, confidential company documents, and court records to reveal how UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, was inappropriately using predictions from a flawed computer algorithm to deny care to seriously ill patients. Reducing older adults and people with disabilities to numbers, insurers used the predictions to deny or prematurely cut off rehab care of sick and injured Medicare Advantage beneficiaries and maximize the company’s profits. The publication of this four-part investigative series prompted federal regulators to issue new rules and launch their own investigations and triggered at least two class-action lawsuits.
Friends of the Court
While there has been plenty of press coverage of the Supreme Court’s landmark court decisions over the years, the Justices themselves have long evaded the kind of public scrutiny endured by elected officials and other public servants. Seeking to shed light on one of the most opaque branches of government, this reporting team used a series of unconventional reporting techniques – cross-referencing highly redacted records from U.S. Marshals with flight data, hunting down fishing licenses, private yacht schedules, photos on social media and interviews with hundreds of people around the world – to reveal a system that enables judges to thwart ethical oversight and conceal conflicts of interest as they rule on the country’s most consequential legal cases. Their reporting prompted investigations by the Senate Judiciary and Finance committees and led to the Supreme Court’s adoption of a code of conduct for the first time in its history.
Ghost Tags: Inside New York City’s Black Market for Temporary License Plates
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, reporter Jesse Coburn noticed a strange trend: cars with out-of-state temporary paper license plates seemed to be all over New York City. Coburn filed public records requests in New Jersey and Georgia – two states that were especially prevalent among the temporary plates in New York – and discovered that fraudsters were taking advantage of lax regulations in these states and issuing tens of thousands of temporary tags from dealerships with no other apparent business activity. Motorists in NYC used the fraudulent tags for anonymity while dodging tolls, driving without insurance, and committing serious and violent crimes. Following the publication of “Ghost Tags,” lawmakers in New Jersey passed a law reforming the state’s temporary tag system, and elected officials in Georgia and New York City also introduced legislation on the issue.
Unfettered Power: Mississippi Sheriffs
In the summer of 2022, Mississippi Today reporter Jerry Mitchell was alarmed by how often sheriffs accused of committing serious crimes managed to evade any consequences and remain in office. Mitchell and reporter Ilyssa Daly began investigating the state’s sheriffs and soon found themselves inundated with corruption allegations and harrowing tales of torture and violence from victims and witnesses across the state. Joining forces with the New York Times, the team obtained records logged from officers’ Tasers (the preferred torture device of the deputies, according to victims) and matched the logs with other departmental records to determine which device was assigned to each deputy. This allowed them to corroborate the victims’ accounts and identify additional victims. Their series of reports led to the federal indictment of one former sheriff and “lit a fire under federal authorities,” with the FBI requesting the reporters’ help in reaching the victims and witnesses for interviews.
This project was in part supported by Big Local News at Stanford University and the Pulitzer Center.
With Every Breath: Millions of Breathing Machines. One Dangerous Defect.
After months of sorting through thousands of complaints submitted to the FDA, reporters revealed that Philips Respironics kept millions of dangerous breathing machines – used by COVID-19 patients, infants, the elderly, and veterans – on the market, despite warnings from their own experts that the devices posed serious health risks. The investigation also revealed that the FDA had received warnings about contaminants in the machines for years but repeatedly failed to warn the public. Their reporting prompted the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to launch an investigation of the FDA’s oversight of medical devices for the first time in a decade and led to calls by influential members of Congress for the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into Philips Respironics.
Undocumented and Underage
A Dickensian scenario was playing out in America’s South: undocumented immigrant children, some as young as 12, working in dangerous factories building parts for two of the world’s most successful automakers: Hyundai and sister brand Kia. Initially prompted by the soaring number of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border and ending up in rural Alabama, Reuters reporters Joshua Schneyer, Mica Rosenberg, and Kristina Cooke spent more than a year with many of the state’s rural immigrant communities and uncovered widespread abuses in a fast-growing local industry enabled by billions of dollars in tax incentives and lax labor laws. First, the reporters found that Alabama staffing agencies were hiring underage migrants and putting them to work in poultry slaughterhouses. Soon, they discovered agencies had also placed kids at SMART Alabama LLC, a parts maker owned by Hyundai. Children were working long hours, including graveyard shifts, in dangerous conditions. Some were racing to repay human smugglers who had brought them over the border, authorities and migrants said. As a result of the reporting, authorities quickly found and rescued kids from one factory, and employers released other children from similar jobs. Alabama and U.S. agencies launched at least 10 investigations into the hiring practices. A Hyundai supplier and its recruiter have been fined for violating child labor laws. And Hyundai has acknowledged the problem, pledged reforms to remove all child labor from its supply chain, and begun discussions with the U.S. Department of Labor about the violations.
The Backchannel
Reporter Anna Wolfe read a startling statistic published in a 2017 report: Mississippi, the most impoverished state in the nation, was approving just 1.5% of families applying for cash welfare assistance. That statistic sent Wolfe looking for where the state was sending the federal funds, if not to families who needed them. Over the next five years, Wolfe submitted more than 80 public records requests and faced repeated stonewalling from government officials and agencies. Through the challenging reporting process, she discovered that the state was funneling tens of millions-worth of welfare grants through two nonprofits under the guise of former Gov. Phil Bryant’s nebulous anti-poverty program called Families First for Mississippi, which refused to provide direct aid, instead leading needy families down dead ends. After the arrests of state welfare agency and nonprofit officials for embezzlement, Wolfe’s reporting didn’t stop: Through private text messages that officials have concealed from the public, Wolfe uncovered corruption and influence peddling extending all the way to Bryant and former NFL legend Brett Favre. Bryant admitted to many of the report’s findings in a rare on-the-record interview. Multiple defendants have since come forward with allegations against Bryant or have relied on the reporting in court filings that insist Bryant be held accountable. Congressman Bennie Thompson and the NAACP president urged the U.S. Attorney General and Department of Justice to investigate Bryant’s otherwise ignored role in the scandal, and Thompson has vowed to hold congressional hearings. State lawmakers, citing the investigation, held multiple hearings about how the state could better spend its welfare grants. Several legislators filed bills in early 2023 to reform the welfare agency’s management and oversight over federal funds. Meanwhile, federal criminal investigations into the scandal continue.
Power Play: How utilities paid a consulting group that infiltrated local news media, attacked clean energy foes and intimidated public officials
A months-long investigation by NPR’s David Folkenflik and Floodlight’s Mario Ariza and Miranda Green uncovered just how far two major power companies went to try to make sure their political foes didn’t dampen their profits or hold them accountable. The reporting, building off of an earlier Floodlight investigation with the Orlando Sentinel, found that Alabama Power and Florida Power & Light paid consulting company Matrix LLC millions over a decade, resulting in undisclosed payments to news outlets that cast the utilities in a positive light and were critical of those who questioned their power. A freelance ABC News producer was also hired to misleadingly represent herself and confront politicians over controversies relevant to Matrix clients. These revelations were followed by leadership changes at both power companies, internal investigations into their work with Matrix, as well as broad calls for transparency and reform. ABC News also severed ties with the freelance journalist. The story offers a rare window into the way power companies and consultants manipulate the democratic system, and the pressure local regulators and lawmakers confront if they seek to hold those corporations accountable, and what happens when local news erodes.
MIA: Crisis in the Ranks
With Philadelphia suffering record levels of gun violence, Philadelphia Inquirer journalists Barbara Laker, David Gambacorta, and William Bender spent a year investigating police officers’ abuse of Pennsylvania’s generous “Heart and Lung” disability benefit. An astonishing number were deemed by union-selected doctors as unavailable to work – one in seven patrol officers, or 14%, far greater than the percentage of disabled police in other cities. The reporters learned that the police union wielded a little-known power to select the doctors who treated the injured cops – a major conflict of interest – and discovered that of the seven doctors selected for the program, five had a history of questionable behavior. The Inquirer investigation prompted an audit of the benefits program by the City Controller, internal investigations by the Police Commissioner, and the introduction of a bill by state lawmakers aimed at cracking down on fraud and abuse within the police disability program. The reporting team also cites that by year’s end, the number of officers out with injury claims dropped by 31%, and the number of injured officers cleared for court duty more than tripled.
