In “Fast and Fatal,” reporters Jennifer Gollan and Susie Neilson of the San Francisco Chronicle brought to light the deadly consequences of police chases in the United States. Through meticulous research and data gathering over a year, the reporters unveiled that police chases resulted in over 3,300 deaths from 2017 through 2022, with a significant number of victims being bystanders or passengers, not the fleeing drivers. Many chases began with minor offenses rather than violent crimes, yet very few officers faced consequences for actions that led to fatalities.
A pivotal part of their research included creating a comprehensive database by compiling information from various sources such as research organizations, government data, media reports, and public records. They also identified the dangerous use of the Pursuit Intervention Technique (PIT), responsible for numerous deaths, half of which were not the fleeing drivers.
The reporters’ findings prompted significant impact even before publication. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration acknowledged the need to update its fatality data. The investigation spurred legislative calls for accurate data collection on police chase fatalities and inspired NYU’s Policing Project to develop national guidelines for vehicle pursuits, advocating for stricter policies and prohibitions on PIT maneuvers.
“Fast and Fatal” had a ripple effect, with media outlets and academic institutions using the Chronicle’s database to further investigate and raise awareness about pursuit fatalities. The series has been instrumental in changing perceptions and policies about police pursuits, highlighting the critical need for reform to enhance public safety and accountability.
Photo collage courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle.
KARE 11 Investigates: Recovery Inc.
In “Recovery Inc.,” reporters at KARE 11 in Minneapolis revealed widespread evidence of fraud in Minnesota’s addiction recovery industry, exposing how companies billed taxpayers for services never rendered. The investigation began with tips about dubious billing practices and expanded to uncover systemic issues in government oversight and accountability. A key case involved a double murder where the accused did not receive treatment as claimed by the facility. KARE 11’s reporting highlighted egregious examples, such as billing Medicaid for 203 hours of work by a single employee in one day and charging for movie nights as therapy sessions. The series uncovered a relationship between Kyros, a for-profit entity, and Refocus Recovery, a nonprofit, both founded by Daniel Larson. The investigation showed that Refocus funneled 96% of its taxpayer revenue to Kyros, based on exploiting Medicaid billing practices.
KARE 11’s dedicated journalism, often conducted under threats, exposed these practices by interviewing affected individuals and deciphering complex billing data. Their reporting prompted multiple federal and state investigations, including an FBI raid, a Department of Justice asset freeze, and a criminal indictment. The exposé also led to significant leadership changes, with top executives resigning. Furthermore, the investigation inspired swift legislative reform, passing laws to improve supervision, audit Medicaid billing, and eliminate nonprofits with conflicting interests. The series’ ripple effect included bipartisan legislative hearings, and KARE 11’s courage in challenging an unconstitutional gag order fortified its impact, emphasizing the media’s critical watchdog role in society.
Illustration courtesy of KARE-TV.
Medicare Inc.: How Giant Insurers Make Billions Off Seniors
The Wall Street Journal’s investigative series “Medicare Inc.: How Giant Insurers Make Billions Off Seniors” exposed how private insurers exploit the Medicare Advantage system by prioritizing profits over actual patient care. The series, led by a team with extensive experience in analyzing Medicare data, revealed that insurers are financially incentivized to minimize services while increasing reported diagnoses to boost government payments. The investigation involved unprecedented access to Medicare data, covering every service provided to beneficiaries from 2015 to 2022. Through data analysis, interviews and internal corporate documents, the team discovered a disturbing pattern where insurers profited from diagnoses reported without providing corresponding treatment, including during home visits.
The Journal’s in-depth research, which included reverse-engineering Medicare’s payment algorithms, confronted numerous challenges, including learning complex statistical software and processing massive datasets. Their findings uncovered systemic issues, such as insurers exploiting home visit diagnoses to claim billions in inflated payments.
The impact of the investigation has been significant, prompting congressional inquiries and influencing federal policy. The Office of Inspector General recommended halting payments based solely on home visit diagnoses. The Congressional Budget Office estimated a potential $124 billion in savings over ten years if such payments were stopped. Additionally, federal investigations have been initiated, including by the Justice Department and Sen. Chuck Grassley, who cited the reports in demanding disclosures from UnitedHealth. The series has also galvanized further research, with institutions like the Kaiser Family Foundation expanding on the Journal’s findings about end-of-life care patterns. The Journal’s reporting is prompting legislative reforms and encouraging more accountability in Medicare Advantage practices.
Chart image courtesy of the Wall Street Journal.
Our Troops’ Wounded Brains
Dave Philipps’ investigative reporting revealed the pervasive and overlooked brain injuries suffered by U.S. military personnel due to repeated low-level shocks, such as blasts from weapons or high-impact maneuvers. While initially focusing on artillery crew members impacted by firing their own weapons, Philipps expanded his investigation to examine whether these brain injuries were prevalent among other troops with more routine military experiences. He discovered that highly skilled units, including Navy SEALs and TOPGUN pilots, were significantly affected.
Despite a lack of official reports or documents, Philipps conducted extensive on-the-ground interviews with affected troops, veterans, and their families. He navigated the military’s tight controls, insularity, and attempts to obscure the issue by fostering trust within these communities and accessing informal networks. His research documented instances across various military roles, revealing critical insights into how the military had long been blind to the problem due to cultural and institutional obstructions.
The series sparked substantial impact, prompting legislative and policy changes. In December, Congress enacted the Blast Overpressure Safety Act, mandating the military to monitor blast exposure and design safer weapons, anticipating long-term benefits for millions of troops. The Pentagon initiated baseline brain scans for recruits, revealing systemic changes. Additionally, the reporting influenced international military practices, with allied nations reevaluating their training and equipment protocols. Philipps’ work not only highlighted a severe issue but also empowered troop communities, providing a clearer understanding of their injuries and avenues for treatment.
Photo credit Kenny Holston, The New York Times, used here courtesy of The New York Times.
Right to Remain Secret
The two-part investigative series “Right to Remain Secret,” a collaboration between UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program and the San Francisco Chronicle, unveiled how multiple police agencies in California used secretive legal settlements to mask the misconduct of officers. The investigation followed an interview with a former police chief from Banning, California, who had reportedly dismissed officers for serious misconduct, only to have their records altered to show voluntary resignations due to clandestine agreements. This tactic allowed these officers to seek employment elsewhere without disclosing prior allegations.
Reporters Katey Rusch and Casey Smith embarked on a rigorous journey, submitting over a thousand public records requests across the state, which revealed more than 300 such “clean-record agreements.” Many settlements contained strict confidentiality terms and financial penalties for disclosure, complicating the release of records. Furthermore, the investigation exposed the misuse of the California disability pension system, with some agreements promising officers a tax-free disability retirement under suspect circumstances.
The series has sparked significant impact. Public outcry has driven California legislators to consider banning these agreements, while the California Public Employees’ Retirement System is investigating pension cases highlighted by the series for possible revocation. Multiple officers have lost their positions or face further scrutiny, and the ACLU of Southern California added the elimination of these agreements to its legislative agenda. Media outlets and experts have lauded the investigation, recognizing its groundbreaking revelations into the shielded operations within law enforcement systems.
Image used here courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle.
She Ate a Poppy Seed Salad Before Giving Birth. Then They Took Her Baby Away.
This investigative series, spearheaded by reporter Shoshana Walter, uncovered the troubling practice of hospitals nationwide using unreliable drug tests on birthing patients, leading to unwarranted child welfare interventions. The investigation began when Walter heard from a mother whose positive methamphetamine test was falsely triggered by a common blood pressure medication. Further investigation revealed numerous cases, including Susan Horton, whose consumption of a poppy seed salad caused a false positive opiate test, resulting in her newborn’s removal. The reporting highlighted the high false positive rates of urine screens and the consequent threats many new mothers face from child welfare agencies.
Walter interviewed hundreds of women, examined medical records, and filed public records requests to scrutinize drug testing and reporting practices. Her findings exposed that federal authorities have long known about the unreliability of urine screens, yet no state safeguards birthing patients’ rights. This led to traumatizing experiences for many families who were wrongfully accused and separated.
The impact has been profound, with many affected women coming forward and advocacy groups mobilizing for change. The stories galvanized legislative attention, prompting U.S. lawmakers to condemn the practice and seek solutions. Civil rights organizations are leveraging the investigation to instigate legal and policy reforms across more than 20 states. Within the medical and child welfare communities, the series sparked discussions and initiated efforts to revise existing procedures, demonstrating the potential for systemic change prompted by rigorous investigative journalism.
Photo credit: Marissa Leshnov for The Marshall Project, used here courtesy of The Marshall Project
Alone and Exploited
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.
