Campaign Spending Shows Political Ties, Self-Dealing

March 28, 1:02 p.m.

So far, top super PACs and presidential candidates have spent more than $306 million in ways that hint at potential coordination. In some cases, this could violate FEC rules. 

A Tangled Web: Who’s Making Money From All This Campaign Spending?

March 23, 11:06 a.m.

Many have been detailing the vast sums being raised by the presidential candidates and the super PACs supporting them. But where are all those millions being spent?

Untangling a Web of FEC Data

March 23, 10:53 a.m.

Our Tangled Web graphic shows the 200 biggest recipients of expenditure money from the five major presidential campaigns (Gingrich, Obama, Paul, Romney and Santorum), as well as from major super PACs, from around the middle of 2011 through February, 2012.

A Tangled Web: Who’s Making Money From All This Campaign Spending?

March 21, 2:41 p.m.

Message Machine: Reverse Engineering an Obama Email Campaign

March 6, 6:34 p.m.

Campaigns are increasingly tailoring their messages—and their funding requests—using massive databases of personal information about potential voters. Here are six variations of a Thursday night message from the Obama campaign, based on emails submitted by 190 recipients across the country.

Message Machine: “You Probably Don’t Know Janet”

March 6, 6:29 p.m.

Campaigns are increasingly tailoring their messages — and their funding requests — using massive databases of personal information about potential voters. [LINK TO POST] Here are six variations of a Thursday night message from the Obama campaign, based on emails submitted by 190 recipients across the country. Click a tab to select an email. Then hover over the other tabs to compare your selection to the others.

Showing You the Money (Faster)

Feb. 27, 11 a.m.

We pitched in on some new features in the New York Times’ Campaign Finance API and its Ruby wrapper, CampaignCash.

Graphic: Who are the Super PACs’ Biggest Donors?

Feb. 21, 1:52 p.m.

An interactive chart showing the share of all contributions given by the top ten donors to each of the 12 largest super PACs.

With Spotlight on Super PAC Dollars, Nonprofits Escape Scrutiny

Feb. 3, 7:01 p.m.

Super PAC filings for 2011 reveal few surprises in identifying contributors: Unions give to Democrats, while businesses back Republicans. Much less is known about the social-welfare nonprofits that might play a big role in the election.

PAC Track: Now Includes Contributions

Feb. 1, 12:22 p.m.

What and where are the super PACs spending?

Explore Sources: A New Feature to “Show Our Work”

Dec. 15, 2011, 1:46 p.m.

Timeline: A History of Pardons

Dec. 4, 2011, Midnight

Income Inequality Near You

Nov. 4, 2011, 11:36 a.m.

Introducing DocDiver

Oct. 4, 2011, 11:30 a.m.

Today we’re launching a new feature that lets readers work alongside ProPublica reporters—and each other—to identify key bits of information in documents, and to share what they’ve found. We call it DocDiver.

ALEC-Related Contributions

Aug. 1, 2011, 2:25 p.m.

Use this database to find campaign contributions from some ALEC-affiliated groups to some ALEC-member state legislators.

How You Can Use Our ‘Opportunity Gap’ Project in Your Reporting

Aug. 1, 2011, 11:02 a.m.

Here’s our guide on how to use our project on educational opportunities, including instructions on how to share your findings from within the app.

Facebook for News Apps: How We Harnessed the Social Network for ‘The Opportunity Gap’

July 8, 2011, 10:17 a.m.

Embracing ‘behavior design’—coupled with our preference for keeping our apps light on database writes—spurred us to integrate Facebook for our news app in a deeper way than we’ve done before.

The Opportunity Gap

June 30, 2011, 9:22 a.m.

ProPublica analyzed new data from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights along with other federal education data to examine whether states provide students equal access.

TimelineSetter: Easy Timelines From Spreadsheets, Now Open to All

April 4, 2011, 12:30 p.m.

Last week we announced TimelineSetter, our new tool for creating beautiful interactive HTML timelines. Today, after a short private beta with some of our fellow news application developers, we’re opening the code to everyone.