A Closer Look
Examining the News
What Police Impunity Looks Like: “There Was No Discipline as No Wrongdoing Was Found”
To understand why police are so rarely held accountable for killings, you should know about Kawaski Trawick, and what didn’t happen to the officer who shot him.
Lessons From Bessemer: What Amazon’s Union Defeat Means for the American Labor Movement
Did the failed vote in Alabama deliver a fatal blow to employees’ union efforts, or is it just a temporary setback? History offers a few clues.
I Received Tips to Look Into How a Hospital Treated Premature Babies. Getting Data Was Nearly Impossible.
New Mexico limits the information it collects on neonatal centers. That makes it incredibly challenging to get reliable data, sort out what’s wrong and figure out how to fix it.
Why There’s So Much Investigative Journalism About Utility Companies
Power and water touch the lives of everyone. Someone has to hold the companies that deliver them to account.
To Hold the Government Accountable, We Need to Know What It’s Doing. That’s Why We’re Tracking PPP Data.
When Congress earmarked hundreds of billions of dollars for the Paycheck Protection Program, ProPublica believed the public had a right to know how the money was being spent. A federal judge agreed.
Twenty-Six Words Created the Internet. What Will It Take to Save It?
Jeff Kosseff wrote the book on Section 230, the law that gave us the internet we have today. He talks with ProPublica Editor-in-Chief Stephen Engelberg about how we got here and how we should regulate our way out.
Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light
We know the government lied about Vietnam. But should the reporter who published the Pentagon Papers have lied to his source?
The Return of the Regulators
Like them or revile them, federal agencies seem poised to regain some of their traditional powers under the new administration. But it’s not clear how far President Biden wants them to go.
“We’ve Let the Worst Happen”: Reflecting on 400,000 Dead
A much-needed check-in with health care reporter Caroline Chen as we examine the toll COVID-19 has taken on the country and what to expect from a new president.
Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years
The “King of Debt” promised to reduce the national debt — then his tax cuts made it surge. Add in the pandemic, and he oversaw the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.
The Enraging Deja Vu of a Third Coronavirus Wave
Health care workers don’t need patronizing praise. They need resources, federal support, and for us to stay healthy and out of their hospitals. In many cases, none of that is happening.
The Myth of the Latino Vote and What Newsrooms Must Learn From 2020
This election once again showed the need for more distinct voices in newsrooms. ProPublica and Texas Tribune reporter Perla Trevizo explains why newsrooms must comprise and engage the communities they cover — and not just before an election.
El mito del voto latino y lo que los medios pueden aprender del 2020
Esta contienda electoral nuevamente mostró la necesidad de diversificar las redacciones. La reportera de ProPublica y el Texas Tribune, Perla Trevizo, explica por qué los medios deben de poner atención a las diversas comunidades día tras día, no solo antes de las elecciones.
The Unexpected Benefits of Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Polling
The most important thing journalists can do as they think about covering and investigating government and politics in election years is to not assume any outcome.
Not Mentioned in Cuomo’s Coronavirus Book: How Many Nursing Home Residents Died in New York
Cuomo’s new book on leadership, published as the pandemic continues to ravage America, touts his willingness to speak hard truths about the pandemic. Why then has he still not said how many nursing home residents perished on his watch?
The Fed Saved the Economy but Is Threatening Trillions of Dollars Worth of Middle-Class Retirement
The Federal Reserve has bailed out the stock and bond markets and stabilized the economy with its rock-bottom rates — but at the expense of Social Security and pension funds.
America Is About to Lose Its 200,000th Life to Coronavirus. How Many More Have to Die?
As another grim milestone approaches, here are the lessons officials ignored and what the country needs to do to prevent further tragedy.
What Can Mayors Do When the Police Stop Doing Their Jobs?
In cities across the country, leaders face a phenomenon encountered in Baltimore and Chicago: officers slowing their work in the wake of high-profile episodes of police violence. Reporter Alec MacGillis asks: Will the result be different this time?
The CARES Act Sent You a $1,200 Check but Gave Millionaires and Billionaires Far More
The stimulus checks were meant to get average Americans through the lockdown, but those $1,200 payouts were small change compared with the billions in tax breaks the CARES Act handed out to the country’s wealthiest.
