The Center for Public Integrity

A first with FRONTLINE

A key to the Center’s business model is partnering with multiple media outlets to expand the impact of our work. I’m particularly pleased about an upcoming segment with PBS FRONTLINE called Dollars and Dentists. This major joint investigation by our two organizations is, I hope, the harbinger of many more to come. The Washington Post will also be publishing print versions of our investigation.

FRONTLINE producer Jill Rosenbaum has been working in the Center’s newsroom for more than a year, attending editorial meetings and keeping a lookout for an important investigation to translate to television. She started tracking troubling financial charges to young Medicaid dental patients. Center reporter David Heath joined in the investigation and nine months later a major project, including both the FRONTLINE documentary and two in-depth print pieces, will premiere next week.

Please tune in to PBS FRONTLINE on Tuesday night, June 26, and read about our investigation at www.iwatchnews.org. This level of high-quality partnering is very much the future of investigative journalism and I’m proud of the Center for Public Integrity’s leadership role in the investigative news sector.

Until next week,

 

Bill Buzenberg
Executive Director

Running from sunlight

My good friends at the Sunlight Foundation have made excellent use of a famous quote by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants."

But many a modern lawmaker seems to abhor that prescription. At the Center for Public Integrity, we've been busy tracking legislative action in the wake of our massive State Integrity Investigation—a data-driven corruption risk index for all 50 states. The good news is that so far at least six states have either enacted or introduced improved accountability measures.

But many other states have not. One of the 330 measures we looked at is an analysis of public records policies. We found that in state after state, the open records laws are riddled with exemptions and loopholes that impede the public's right to know, rather than improve upon it. What are lawmakers hiding?

Such obfuscations only limit the public's ability to know what's going on—and who is quietly benefitting. Brandeis was right; more sunlight, please.

Until next week,

Bill Buzenberg
Executive Director

Accountability Rules

A recent political cartoon showed an enormous mountain of cash. Uncle Sam sits on top of the pile digging with a shovel. The caption: "There's got to be a democracy in here somewhere." The word "dollarocracy" comes to mind.

Our political system is for sale—by both parties. Billionaire donors back candidates like race horses. Did you know that almost all the campaign contributions to Super PACS come from about 200 people? Or, that all of the campaign contributions of more than $200 come from just a tiny fraction of 1 percent of the population?

Meanwhile, in Washington there are about 12,000 lobbyists—that's 23 for every member of Congress. This undue influence of money has a corrosive effect on our political system. We all want politicians to work for people, not for their corporate sponsors. We all want fair and clean elections. The Center for Public Integrity seeks to provide much needed transparency and accountability, tracking this onslaught of cash, and shining a light on both the sources of this funding and what the donors are looking for in return.

Until next week,

Bill Buzenberg
Executive Director
 

New International Investigations Website

Crime and corruption don't stop at national borders. That's why the Center launched the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in 1997. This unique group is comprised of 160 member journalists in 60 countries who investigate bad actors and trans-global issues across the world.

This week, ICIJ unveiled a new website showcasing its award-winning work. I invite you to take a look. There you'll find the full Looting the Seas investigation on worldwide overfishing; Dangers in the Dust, an expose of the deadly international asbestos trade; and Island of the Widows, an ongoing investigation of a mysterious kidney ailment afflicting farm laborers in Latin America. The site also includes information on a new ICIJ investigation of international tax havens.

With deep reporting cutbacks in media outlets in the U.S., the intrinsic value of the Center and ICIJ's global investigative work grows daily. We dig into the toughest and most important stories other media simply aren't able to cover.

Until next week,

Investigating Power

Great investigative reporting is woven into the historical fabric of America. Check out a very cool new website that tells this history and profiles the reporters who made it happen: InvestigatingPower.org.

Investigating Power is a tribute to independent journalism and a testament to the vital role of truth in a healthy democracy. It offers an extensive high-resolution video library of interviews with 23 men and women who have produced fearless journalism that exposes abuses of power throughout society.

The group includes Mike Wallace, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Dana Priest, Moses Newson, Christiane Amanpour and Daniel Schorr. Each gives observations on their careers and the ongoing importance of truth telling.

This website was created over five years by Charles Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity, who now runs the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University.

Until next week,

Bill Buzenberg
Executive Director

Award-winning work

We work hard every day to uncover the truth. That means thousands of hours digging, reporting and sifting through data to deliver compelling investigations to you.

We’ve been gratified lately to look up and find the Center’s journalism lauded by several professional organizations. This week, the Society of Professional Journalists awarded us three 2011 Sigma Delta Chi awards. The winners: the Poisoned Places air pollution investigation with NPR; Fueling Fears, a series uncovering dangerous safety problems at American oil refineries; and the Collapse of Solyndra, with ABC News.

It’s worth noting that the Center broke significant ground on the Solyndra story months before it became a household word. The coverage was also honored this week as a finalist for the Columbia University John B. Oakes Award.

Until next week,

Bill Buzenberg
Executive Director

Clear Impact

We’re seeing more impact from our massive State Integrity Investigation every day. When you put compelling information into people’s hands in an easy-to-access format, big things happen.

State legislators in Delaware, Michigan, Ohio and South Carolina are proposing new ethics reforms based on our new survey of state transparency and accountability. We hope that many more will follow. More than 1,000 other media organizations and dozens of editorials have cited our work.

The phone has also been ringing off the hook here at the Center from citizens who knew something was wrong in their state capitals but now have some definitive data on why. Not all feedback is positive: An RV camp operator in Virginia chastised us for “ruining tourism” by giving that state a failing grade.

Of course, that’s the nature of our work. I remain gratified by the attention the State Integrity Investigation has earned and the awareness and dialog generated by it.

Until Next Week,

Bill Buzeberg
Executive Director