Welcome Aboard, Georgia DOT — ProPublica

Welcome Aboard, Georgia DOT

by Amanda Michel

July 21, 2009, 4:43 p.m. EDT

This is an unexpected development: The Georgia Department of Transportation has joined our Stimulus Spot Check project and volunteered to provide us with information about 12 road and bridge construction projects. Officials in that department need to pull together information about the projects now for public release on their stimulus Web site in August, and they've offered to share it with us in advance.

Deal!

Evidently the Georgia DOT took notice of our plan to report on how easy it is for the general public to get basic stimulus information from the state DOTs.

Now, you may ask, as you should, how can a news organization partner with a state Department of Transportation? Well, we're asking volunteers to find out information by contacting state DOTs and then to fact-check some of that through alternative sources. Georgia DOT officials are doing in advance what we'd ask of them over the phone in coming days. Of course, we will fact-check such information, as we do for other states.

Now, the question just begs to be asked: Will other DOTs follow Georgia's lead?

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