Category: Oversight

IRW’s executive editor, Charles Lewis, was the keynote speaker on Dec. 13 at the 11th annual Ukrainian Investigative Journalism Conference, hosted by the Regional Press Development Institute in Kyiv, Ukraine, from Dec. 13-15.  The theme, “Investigative Journalism in New Media Reality,” drew several hundred reporters from Eastern Europe. They shared their experiences, investigative techniques and …

Continue reading “Transcript: Investigative journalism in the new media reality”

This story was produced by FairWarning, a nonprofit news organization based in Southern California that focuses on public health, consumer and environmental issues.  There are so many boxes at Dollar Tree stores that workers are always running out of room. The boxes form unstable piles that block aisles, reach precarious heights and, most seriously, block …

Continue reading “Boxed in: Dollar Tree cited for job safety violations at dozens of stores”

New details about the marketing campaigns used to persuade the medical community that addiction was rare and patients were suffering needlessly.

MaryBeth Moore Zocco used to send her son, Ryan Moore, care packages. Last December, days before Moore, 25, died from an overdose, his mom mailed him a box with fun winter-themed items: hot chocolate ingredients, an ornament and a red plush blanket. Moore, who struggled with addiction on and off for at least seven years, …

Continue reading “Her son died of an overdose. Now she sends hundreds of cards to parents like her, hoping to ease the stigma.”

Do members of Congress know whether an expert testifying before them has any monetary connections to the outcome of their committee hearings? Do those testifying before them have an affiliation with a group or groups that might want to weaken oversight by an agency or strengthen ties with particular foreign governments? These were some of …

Continue reading “Conflict or not? A deep dive into the world of forms and data leads to collaboration”

Scholars and experts are frequently called before Congress to testify, and sometimes do so without disclosing potential financial conflicts. A lack of accountability helps witnesses not disclose foreign funding as required, whether intentionally or not.

Our story on truth in testimony forms used a combination of data collection, manual data-entry and and field reporting. To build our Truth in Testimony database, we wrote a computer program to automatically capture the publicly available data about who has testified before House committees, including their Truth in Testimony disclosure forms, from the U.S. …

Continue reading “Foreign influence? How we built the database of expert testimony”

From transportation to climate change, members of Congress listen to expert testimony before they make decisions on important issues. But who gets a seat at the table and why? Is it possible they are advocating for a foreign government under the guise of expert advice? In an attempt to know more about any conflicts of …

Continue reading “Foreign influence? House transparency in numbers”

Walgreens dominated the nation’s retail opioid market from 2006 through 2012, buying about 13 billion pills — 3 billion more than its closest competitor.

This story was produced by FairWarning, a nonprofit news organization based in Southern California that focuses on public health, consumer and environmental issues.  On the last day of 2015, Berta Orellana picked up her 7-year-old grandson from day care in a brand new Toyota and headed on a road trip with the boy and two …

Continue reading “Toyota settlements in sudden acceleration cases echo previous safety scandals”