The Center for Public Integrity

The Center for Public Integrity, Public Radio International and Global Integrity have received $1.5 million in grants to fund an ambitious risk analysis of corruption in all 50 state governments.

Omidyar Network will supply up to $1 million for the 18-month effort and the Rita Allen Foundation has agreed to provide $500,000 in matching funds. The State Accountability Project will hire political reporters part-time in every state capital and rank the 50 states for susceptibility to corruption.

The journalists will assess the existence and effectiveness of anti-corruption and government transparency measures at the state level, including political financing, civil service management and state budget processes. The project team will also create online data, reporting and technology tools to empower citizens to demand greater accountability and reform.

“Some of the most hidden forms of political corruption in this country increasingly occur in state governments,” said William E. Buzenberg, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity. “The State Accountability Project will rank each state for risk and specifically show where the dangers lie. Then citizens can get involved and insist on improvements from their elected officials.”

Public Radio International will work with its 880 partner radio stations to inspire people through crowdsourcing and social media to take part in the project and spread the results. “If we hope to stop corruption, people need to be invested and involved,” said Michael Skoler, vice president of interactive media for PRI. “We live in a new media world where people, not simply reporters, can and must be watchdogs for honest government.”

Entries for the 2011 Daniel Pearl Awards for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting are now being accepted. The awards honor the best in cross-border investigative journalism. Submissions must be postmarked no later than July 1, 2011.

The awards are granted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a project of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C. Formerly the ICIJ Awards, the prizes were renamed in 2008 in honor of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was slain in Pakistan in 2002.

Held biennially, the competition is open to any professional journalist or team of journalists of any nationality working in any medium. To be eligible, the investigation — either a single work or a single-subject series — must involve reporting in at least two countries on a topic of global significance. A jury of international journalists will select the winners.

Two $5,000 first-place prizes will be awarded, one to a U.S.-based reporter or news outlet, and another to a non-U.S.-based journalist or news outlet. Five additional finalists will each receive $1,000 prizes.

“The Daniel Pearl Awards provide us a special opportunity to recognize exceptional cross-border investigative reporting,” said Acting ICIJ Director Bill Kovach. “It is an opportunity to call to wider public attention the dedication and courage of journalists around the world who seek to monitor the people and institutions of power and uncover the inconvenient truths about current events.”

The Center for Public Integrity, one of the country’s oldest and largest nonprofit investigative news organization, has entered into an agreement providing exclusive content to Newsweek and The Daily Beast.

Newsweek’s February 7th issue, on sale today, includes a feature on the shortfalls in digital mammography. The piece reports the dubious expectations among experts that the high-tech devices can detect breast cancer in women older than 65 any better that old-fashioned film machines. Meanwhile, Medicare continues to pay for millions of questionable digital mammograms.

“Tina Brown and her team are putting the news back inNewsweek,” said John Solomon, executive editor of the Center.  “We are excited to contribute some of our deep, exclusive investigative reporting to the effort.”

Added Tina Brown, editor in chief of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, “We have great admiration for John and his team at the Center for Public Integrity and are pleased to be working with them both at The Daily Beast andNewsweek. A sharp study of the effectiveness of mammogram technology is featured in today’s issue of Newsweek.”

Said Center Executive Director William E. Buzenberg: “The value of incisive investigative reporting is going up.  This is a tremendous opportunity for us to provide quality journalism to a new audience and to get paid for our work.”

Twenty-seven men were allegedly involved in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal Bureau Chief Daniel Pearl, but only four have been charged and convicted. Fourteen others who were allegedly part of the conspiracy remain free. Those are some of the important conclusions of The Pearl Project, a three-year investigation into the story behind the infamous crime. The report comes near the 9th anniversary of Pearl’s abduction in Karachi, Pakistan, on Jan. 23, 2002.

Led by former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Q. Nomani and Georgetown University Journalism Director Barbara Feinman Todd, a team of 32 students investigated the complex web of militants who orchestrated and carried out the plot that culminated in Pearl’s gruesome death.

“The Pearl Project reveals that justice was not served for Danny,” said Nomani. “We couldn’t save him, but we have uncovered the truth left behind. Through his death, Danny teaches us important lessons about the reality on the ground in Pakistan regarding militancy, Islamic extremism and terrorism.”

Among the findings: