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A Closer Look

Examining the News

Impact of Our Reporting
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A Closer Look

Loan Forgiveness for Disabled Borrowers Was 10 Years in the Making

At ProPublica, we measure our success by the tangible impact our stories have. Sometimes it takes more than a decade to see a flawed policy change.

by Stephen Engelberg,

A Closer Look

Local Accountability Journalism Still Has a Huge Impact

Between the Local Reporting Network and ProPublica Illinois, our work shows that state leaders across the country are listening and things can change.

by Charles Ornstein,

Local Reporting Network

An Open Letter to Elon Musk

by Stephen Engelberg,

Finding Focus: How a Visual Storyteller Gets the Right Image — and the Right Tone

by Sarahbeth Maney,

What to Expect From ProPublica in a Second Trump Administration

by Stephen Engelberg,

How ProPublica Has Covered Abortion Bans, Immigration and More Issues at Stake in the 2024 Election

by Stephen Engelberg,

The Small Midwestern Cities That Could Play a Pivotal Role in This Year’s Elections

by Alec MacGillis,

Georgia’s Top GOP Lawmaker Seeks Tougher Action Against Students Who Make Threats. But It May Not Make Schools Safer.

by Aliyya Swaby,

Our Editor Won a 6-Year Legal Battle. It Didn’t Feel Like a Victory.

by Charles Ornstein,

What Donald Trump’s Criminal Trial Reveals About a Potential Second Trump Administration

by Andrea Bernstein,

Why ProPublica Focuses on Issues You May Not See on Cable News

by Stephen Engelberg,

El presidente mexicano López Obrador atacó nuestro artículo como “una calumnia” y a nuestro reportero como “un peón.” Aquí presentamos algunos hechos.

por Stephen Engelberg,

Mexican President López Obrador Called Our Story “Slander” and Our Reporter a “Pawn.” Here Are Some Facts.

by Stephen Engelberg,

How Social Media Apps Could Be Fueling Homicides Among Young Americans

by Alec MacGillis,

Behind the Scenes of Justice Alito’s Unprecedented Wall Street Journal Pre-buttal

by Jesse Eisinger and Stephen Engelberg,

Cómo alcanzamos a lectores en las granjas lecheras con un artículo sobre ellos

por Charles Ornstein, ProPublica, Fotografía por Caleb Alvarado,

How We Reached Workers While Reporting on Dairy Farm Conditions

by Charles Ornstein, ProPublica, Photography by Caleb Alvarado,

The Origins of Our Investigation Into Clarence Thomas’ Relationship With Harlan Crow

by Stephen Engelberg and Jesse Eisinger,

Regulatory Failure 101: What the Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank Reveals

by Jesse Eisinger,

Impact Matters Most at ProPublica. Here’s How Our Recent Journalism Has Led to Change.

by Charles Ornstein,

How ProPublica’s Local Stories Reach the Communities We Report On

by Charles Ornstein,

What’s Really at Stake in a Politically Charged Supreme Court Case on Elections

by Ian MacDougall,

What Will UnitedHealth’s New Trove of Claims Data Mean for Consumers?

Cezary Podkul,

How Effective Is the Government’s Campaign Against Hospital Mergers?

by Allan Sloan and Carson Kessler,

Tim Ryan: The Working-Class-Jobs Candidate in the Era of Resentment

by Alec MacGillis,

For Donald Trump, Information Has Always Been Power

by Andrea Bernstein,

How We Fight Back When Officials Resist Releasing Information You Have a Right to Know

by Charles Ornstein,

Why the Black Educator Forced Out Over Bogus Critical Race Theory Claims Agreed to Share Her Story

by Nicole Carr,

Will the Jan. 6 Hearings Change Anyone’s Mind?

by Stephen Engelberg,

Daniel Taylor Was Innocent. He Spent Decades in Prison Trying to Fix the State’s Mistake.

by Steve Mills,

New Documents Show How Drug Companies Targeted Doctors to Increase Opioid Prescriptions

by Charles Ornstein,

“If You’re Getting a W-2, You’re a Sucker”

by Paul Kiel,

How Reporters Reconstructed a Deadly Evacuation From Kabul

by Stephen Engelberg,

Welfare Is No Substitute for a Child Tax Credit

by Eli Hager,

A Police Car Hit a Kid on Halloween 2019. The NYPD Is Quashing a Move to Punish the Officer.

by Eric Umansky,

One Major Reason the U.S. Hasn’t Stopped Syphilis From Killing Babies

by Caroline Chen,

The Billionaires Tax Isn’t New

by Jesse Eisinger,

Recent White House Study on Taxes Shows the Wealthy Pay a Lower Rate Than Everybody Else

by Stephen Engelberg,

The Inside Story of How We Reported the Secret IRS Files

by ProPublica,

Revisiting “The Year of the Spy”

by Stephen Engelberg,

The Investigative Reporting Behind America’s Obsession With Britney Spears’ Conservatorship

by Robin Fields,

How NYPD’s Vice Unit Got Prostitution Policing All Wrong

by Stephen Engelberg,

How the Federal Reserve Is Increasing Wealth Inequality

by Allan Sloan and Cezary Podkul,

What Police Impunity Looks Like: “There Was No Discipline as No Wrongdoing Was Found”

by Eric Umansky,

Lessons From Bessemer: What Amazon’s Union Defeat Means for the American Labor Movement

by Alec MacGillis,

I Received Tips to Look Into How a Hospital Treated Premature Babies. Getting Data Was Nearly Impossible.

by Bryant Furlow, New Mexico In Depth,

Why There’s So Much Investigative Journalism About Utility Companies

by Stephen Engelberg,

To Hold the Government Accountable, We Need to Know What It’s Doing. That’s Why We’re Tracking PPP Data.

by Jeremy Kutner,

Twenty-Six Words Created the Internet. What Will It Take to Save It?

Stephen Engelberg,

Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

by Stephen Engelberg,

President Joe Biden at the White House on Jan. 21.

The Return of the Regulators

by Jesse Eisinger,

“We’ve Let the Worst Happen”: Reflecting on 400,000 Dead

by Logan Jaffe,

Biden Inaugural Confronts the Jan. 6 Riot Head-On, Calls for an End to “This Uncivil War”

by Richard Tofel,

Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years

by Allan Sloan, ProPublica, and Cezary Podkul for ProPublica,

The Enraging Deja Vu of a Third Coronavirus Wave

by Caroline Chen,

El mito del voto latino y lo que los medios pueden aprender del 2020

por Perla Trevizo,

The Myth of the Latino Vote and What Newsrooms Must Learn From 2020

by Perla Trevizo,

An illustration of people in red and blue clothing voting. The composition is fractured into five sections.

The Unexpected Benefits of Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Polling

by Stephen Engelberg,

Not Mentioned in Cuomo’s Coronavirus Book: How Many Nursing Home Residents Died in New York

by Joe Sexton,

The Fed Saved the Economy but Is Threatening Trillions of Dollars Worth of Middle-Class Retirement

by Allan Sloan,

America Is About to Lose Its 200,000th Life to Coronavirus. How Many More Have to Die?

by Stephen Engelberg,

What Can Mayors Do When the Police Stop Doing Their Jobs?

by Alec MacGillis,

The CARES Act Sent You a $1,200 Check but Gave Millionaires and Billionaires Far More

by Allan Sloan,

The Bailout Is Working — for the Rich

by Jesse Eisinger,

I’m an Investigative Journalist. These Are the Questions I Asked About the Viral “Plandemic” Video.

by Marshall Allen,

Coronavirus Entered My Father’s Nursing Home and Nobody Warned Me. I Did Not Get the Chance to Save Him.

by Jan Ransom for ProPublica,

How the Coronavirus Bailout Repeats 2008’s Mistakes: Huge Corporate Payoffs With Little Accountability

by Jesse Eisinger,

The Real Story About Trump’s Latest Attack on the Press

by Richard Tofel,

Paratransit Services in New York City Are Severely Limited and Unpredictable. They Still Cost $614 Million a Year.

by Claire Perlman,

Iowa’s Lesson: Political Parties Are Not as Good as Government Officials at Counting Votes

by Jessica Huseman, Jack Gillum and Derek Willis,

We’ve Been Tracking Pharma Payments to Doctors For Nearly A Decade. We Just Made A Big Breakthrough.

by Charles Ornstein,

Balancing the Public Interest and a Family’s Grief

by Stephen Engelberg,

University of Illinois Told Our Partners They Must Share Sexual Misconduct Tips With Campus Authorities. Here’s How We’re Protecting Our Sources.

by Charles Ornstein,

Trump’s Ukraine Plotting Has Been Happening in Plain Sight. So Why Didn’t We See It?

by Eric Umansky,

Illinois Is Poised to Become the Gambling Capital of the Midwest

by Jason Grotto, ProPublica Illinois, and Dan Mihalopoulos, WBEZ Chicago,

You Can’t Tax the Rich Without the IRS

by Jesse Eisinger and Paul Kiel,

How the Rich Really Play, “Who Wants To Be An Ivy Leaguer?”

by Daniel Golden,

What We Learned From the First Year of the Local Reporting Network

by Charles Ornstein,

What I Learned Covering HUD: Oversight Failures Are Symptoms of Deeper Dysfunction

by Molly Parker, The Southern Illinoisan,

What Happens When the Next Financial Crisis Strikes?

by Allan Sloan,

Why Manafort and Cohen Thought They’d Get Away With It

by Jesse Eisinger,

Tax Case Flips the Script for Democrats and the GOP. But What About for Jurists?

by Richard Tofel,

A Free Press Works for All of Us

by Stephen Engelberg,

Why the IRS’ Recent Dark Money Decision May Be Less Dire Than It Seems

by Ian MacDougall,

How the Fight Against Affirmative Action at Harvard Could Threaten Rich Whites

by Daniel Golden,

How Mitch McConnell Made Donald Trump

by Alec MacGillis,

Jared Kushner’s Grandmother Bemoaned the “Closed Doors” That Faced Refugees to America

by Allan Sloan,

What It Was Like Reporting on a Teenager Marked for Death by the Gang MS-13

by Hannah Dreier,

Warren Buffett Recommends Investing in Index Funds — But Many of His Employees Don’t Have That Option

by Allan Sloan,

How Senior Daddies — Like Donald Trump — Are Eligible for a Social Security Bonus

by Allan Sloan, ProPublica, and C. Eugene Steuerle, special to ProPublica,

How Political Pessimism Helps Doom Tougher Gun Laws

by Alec MacGillis,

Revelations About the FBI’s Delay on Clinton Emails May Be Less Than They Seem

by Peter Elkind,

Taking Care to Get a Mississippi Scandal Right

by Sarah Smith,

Carried Interest Reform Is a Sham

by Allan Sloan,

The Cost of Trump’s Wall Compared to the Programs He’s Proposing to Cut

by Joe Sexton,

A Closer Look: ‘The Best and the Brightest,’ Steve Bannon and Us

by Richard Tofel and Stephen Engelberg,

Donald Trump and the Return of Seditious Libel

by Richard Tofel,

A Schlupfloch Here, a Schlupfloch There. Now It’s Real Money.

by Allan Sloan,

An Unintended Side Effect of Transparency

by Stephen Engelberg,

Mexico Finds It Easier to Focus on Trump Than Its Own Failings

by Ginger Thompson,

A Closer Look: I’m Not (Just) Your Paperboy

by Amanda Zamora,

The Time a Newspaper Stared Down the Country's Largest Advertiser 

by Richard Tofel,

Let The Game of Whack-A-Mole Begin: Feds Put Forward New Payday Rules

by Paul Kiel,

How Crowdsourcing Helped Bring Red Cross Problems to Light

by Stephen Engelberg,

‘How Did You Start Investigating the Red Cross’: A Q & A With ProPublica Reporters

by Hanqing Chen,

For the Next Attorney General, a Modest Suggestion: Fix Presidential Pardons

by Stephen Engelberg,

Analysis: Government's New Doctor Payments Website Worthy of a Recall

by Charles Ornstein,

Paying Jabbar Collins $10 Million Doesn’t Address Problems With Prosecutors

by Joe Sexton,

A Closer Look: Three Golden Ages of Journalism?

by Paul Steiger,

Why Reporters in the U.S. Now Need Protection

by Paul Steiger,

How the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza Became a Mistaken Poster Boy for Obamacare

by Charles Ornstein,

How the Feds Could Fix Their Glitchy Health Care Exchange

by Charles Ornstein,

Nine Ideas to Make Tylenol and Other Acetaminophen Drugs Safer

by Stephen Engelberg and Robin Fields,

Why We Published the Decryption Story

by Stephen Engelberg and Richard Tofel,

Why NSA Snooping Is Bigger Deal in Germany

by Jannis Brühl,