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45-490: ProPublica ( / p r oʊ ˈ p ʌ b l ɪ k ə / ), legally Pro Publica, Inc. , is a nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in New York City. ProPublica's investigations are conducted by its staff of full-time investigative reporters, and the resulting stories are distributed to news partners for publication or broadcast. In some cases, reporters from both ProPublica and its partners work together on

90-512: A 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. This piece was adapted into the 2019 Netflix series Unbelievable . In 2016, ProPublica published an investigation of the COMPAS algorithm used by U.S. courts to assess the likelihood of a defendant becoming a recidivist . Led by Julia Angwin , the investigation found that "blacks are almost twice as likely as whites to be labeled a higher risk but not actually re-offend," whereas COMPAS "makes

135-581: A Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge", revealed that county authorities had charged some of the children under non-existent laws, as directed by Judge Donna Scott Davenport , and that, among Tennessee children referred to juvenile court, the statewide rate of incarceration was five percent, while in Rutherford County it was 48 percent. The article was a finalist in

180-638: A rebuttal of the investigation's findings. ProPublica conducted a large-scale, circumscribed investigation on Psychiatric Solutions , a company based in Tennessee that buys failing hospitals, cuts staff, and accumulates profit. The report covered patient deaths at numerous Psychiatric Solutions facilities, the failing physical plant at many of their facilities, and covered the State of Florida 's first closure of Manatee Palms Youth Services , which has since been shut down by Florida officials once again. Their report

225-529: A report. Practitioners sometimes use the terms "watchdog reporting" or "accountability reporting". Most investigative journalism has traditionally been conducted by newspapers, wire services , and freelance journalists. With the decline in income through advertising, many traditional news services have struggled to fund investigative journalism, due to it being very time-consuming and expensive. Journalistic investigations are increasingly carried out by news organizations working together, even internationally (as in

270-453: A salary of $ 570,000. Steiger was formerly the managing editor at The Wall Street Journal , where his total compensation (including options ) was double that at ProPublica. Steiger's stated strategy is to use a Wall Street Journal pay model to attract journalistic talent. In 2010, eight ProPublica employees made more than $ 160,000, including managing editor Stephen Engelberg ($ 343,463) and the highest-paid reporter, Dafna Linzer , formerly of

315-534: A story. ProPublica has partnered with more than 90 different news organizations and has won several Pulitzer Prizes . In 2010, it became the first online news source to win a Pulitzer Prize; the story chronicled the urgent life-and-death decisions made by one hospital's exhausted doctors when they were cut off by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina , and was published both in The New York Times Magazine and ProPublica's website. ProPublica

360-656: A tax-free Roth IRA account through his investments in private companies. Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers that investigating the source of the release would be a top priority for the Justice Department. Research by ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio found juvenile incarcerations in Rutherford County, Tennessee , to be far higher than the national average. The investigation, published in October 2021 as "Black Children Were Jailed for

405-615: Is called investigative journalism and is distinct from apparently similar work done by police, lawyers, auditors, and regulatory bodies in that it is not limited as to target, not legally founded and closely connected to publicity." Early newspapers in British colonial America were often suppressed by the authorities for their investigative journalism. Examples include Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick and Benjamin Franklin's New England Courant . Journalists who reported on

450-518: The Center for Public Integrity which includes 165 investigative reporters in over 65 countries working collaboratively on crime, corruption, and abuse of power at a global level, under Gerard Ryle as Director. Working with major media outlets globally, they have exposed organised crime, international tobacco companies, private military cartels, asbestos companies, climate change lobbyists, details of Iraq and Afghanistan war contracts, and most recently

495-743: The New York Daily News were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for a series of reports on the use of eviction rules by the New York City Police Department . In 2019, the Peabody Awards honored ProPublica with the first-ever Peabody Catalyst Award for releasing audio in 2018 that brought immediate change to a controversial government practice of family separation at the southern border. Also in 2019, ProPublica reporter Hannah Dreier

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540-586: The Panama Papers and Paradise Papers . The investigative Commons center opened in Berlin , Germany in 2021 and houses the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights , Forensic Architecture , and Bellingcat . An investigative reporter may make use of one or more of these tools, among others, on a single story: Organizations, Publications and People Dafna Linzer Linzer

585-760: The Sandler Foundation provided ProPublica with significant financial support, it also has received funding from the Knight Foundation , MacArthur Foundation , Pew Charitable Trusts , Ford Foundation , the Carnegie Corporation , and the Atlantic Philanthropies . ProPublica and the Knight Foundation have various connections. For example, Paul Steiger, executive chairman of ProPublica, is a trustee of

630-614: The Silver Gavel Awards of the American Bar Association . In 2013, Linzer joined MSNBC as managing editor of MSNBC digital . In October 2015, Linzer was named to the newly created position of managing editor of politics for NBC News and MSNBC, dividing her time between Washington and New York. In this post, Linzer oversees the political desk and reports to NBC News president Deborah Turness and MSNBC president Phil Griffin . In March 2019, Linzer

675-542: The Washington Post ($ 205,445). In 2010, ProPublica jointly won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting (it was also awarded to the Philadelphia Daily News for an unrelated story) for "The Deadly Choices at Memorial", "a story that chronicles the urgent life-and-death decisions made by one hospital's exhausted doctors when they were cut off by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina." It

720-534: The 2022 National Magazine Awards . Reportage continued by podcast , with The Kids of Rutherford County . In 2021, ProPublica published the results of a two-year analytical project involving examining billions of rows of EPA data to create a map to chart industrial pollution at the neighborhood level – the first of its kind. In five years' worth of EPA data, ProPublica identified over 1,000 toxic hotspots nationwide, estimating that 250,000 people living near these areas may have been exposed to levels of cancer risk that

765-541: The EPA deems unacceptable. ProPublica intended to represent data in a way where the public can understand the risk of breathing the air where they live. Through the map, the town of Verona, Missouri was identified to have an industrial cancer risk 27 times larger than the acceptable value. Subsequently, the EPA agreed to install three air monitors to track ethylene oxide concentration in Verona. Additional "hot spots" identified on

810-413: The Knight Foundation. In like manner, Alberto Ibarguen, the president and CEO of the Knight Foundation is on the board of ProPublica. ProPublica, along with other major news outlets, received grant funding from Sam Bankman-Fried , the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX . ProPublica has attracted attention for the salaries it pays its employees. In 2008, Paul Steiger, the editor of ProPublica, received

855-852: The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for reporting on the billionaires giving gifts to the US Supreme Court 's justices and covering their travel expenses. The stories were written by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy , Alex Mierjeski and Kirsten Berg. In July 2024, Mary Hudetz was presented with the Richard LaCourse Award for Investigative Journalism by the Indigenous Journalists Association for her work on ProPublica’s "The Repatriation Project." Her reporting, which focused on

900-584: The Richard LaCourse Award for Investigative Journalism from the Indigenous Journalists Association in July 2024. Investigative journalism Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, racial injustice , political corruption , or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing

945-549: The budgets for investigative journalism. A 2002 study concluded "that investigative journalism has all but disappeared from the nation's commercial airwaves." Non-commercial journalism has increasingly stepped-up to work on this growing need for in-depth investigations and reporting. One of the largest teams of investigative journalists is the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) launched in 1997 by

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990-412: The case of the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers ), or by nonprofit outlets such as ProPublica , which rely on the support of the public and benefactors to fund their work. University of Missouri journalism professor Steve Weinberg defined investigative journalism as: "Reporting, through one's own initiative and work product, matters of importance to readers, viewers, or listeners." In many cases,

1035-464: The collisions of the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) with civilian vessels in separate incidents in the western Pacific. The stories were written by T. Christian Miller , Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi. In 2021 and 2022, ProPublica journalists Lisa Song and Mark Olalde won SEAL Awards for consistent excellence in environmental reporting. In May 2024, ProPublica won

1080-480: The complexities and obstacles in repatriating Native American remains and sacred objects from museums and universities "had rippling effects at the institutional level down to Indigenous communities and peoples". T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project collaborated on this piece about the process that discovered a serial rapist in Colorado and Washington state. The piece won

1125-550: The dataset they are collecting. For example, the Minneapolis Star Tribune partnered with ProPublica to write about reporting of hate crimes in Minnesota. In 2015, ProPublica launched Surgeon Scorecard, an interactive database that allows users to view complication rates for eight common elective procedures. The tool allows users to find surgeons and hospitals, and see their complication rates. The database

1170-570: The doings of the British authorities would later contribute to revolutionary sentiment in the run-up to the American Revolution ; one prominent example was the Boston Gazette , contributed to by Samuel Adams among others. American journalism textbooks point out that muckraking standards promoted by McClure's Magazine around 1902, "Have become integral to the character of modern investigative journalism." Furthermore,

1215-514: The effects of eviction cases. The app was nominated for a Livingston Award . In June 2021, after receiving leaked, hacked, or stolen IRS documents, ProPublica published a report which claimed that tax rates for the wealthiest Americans were significantly lower than the average middle class tax rate, if unrealized capital gains are considered as equivalent to earned income . ProPublica would later reveal that technology investor and political donor Peter Thiel legally earned more than $ 5 billion in

1260-462: The involvement of Gina Haspel in enhanced interrogation techniques at a black site in Thailand. The report focused particularly on the harsh methods used on Abu Zubaydah , including waterboarding, confinement in small boxes, and wall slamming. In 2018, ProPublica retracted part of its 2017 report that incorrectly stated Gina Haspel was in charge of the black site. This retraction came after Haspel

1305-494: The left leaning organizations that you have supported or that are friendly to what you've supported in the past." They said, "No problem." And when we set up our organizational structure, the board of directors, on which I sit and which Herb is the chairman, does not know in advance what we're going to report on. ProPublica had an initial news staff of 28 reporters and editors, including Pulitzer Prize winners Charles Ornstein , Tracy Weber , Jeff Gerth , and Marcus Stern . Steiger

1350-509: The left-leaning political views of the Sandlers, saying on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer : Coming into this, when I talked to Herb and Marion Sandler, one of my concerns was precisely this question of independence and nonpartisanship ... My history has been doing "down the middle" reporting. And so when I talked to Herb and Marion I said "Are you comfortable with that?" They said, "Absolutely." I said, "Well, suppose we did an exposé of some of

1395-516: The map include the city of Longview in eastern Texas; the most high-risk area of Longview has a risk level 72 times greater than the EPA's acceptable risk. This most high-risk area is the home of Texas Eastman Chemical Plant. According to ProPublica, its analysis of the plant's emissions detected ethylene oxide and 1-3 butadiene . The Texas Eastman Chemical Plant says it has conducted its own tests which "have revealed no areas of concern." In 2017, ProPublica published an investigative report detailing

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1440-477: The opposite mistake among whites: They are much more likely than blacks to be labeled lower-risk but go on to commit other crimes." They also found that only 20 percent of people predicted to commit violent crimes actually went on to do so. COMPAS developer Northpointe criticized ProPublica’s methodology, while a team at the Community Resources for Justice , a criminal justice think tank , published

1485-608: The project as senior reporters. At ProPublica, Linzer wrote the "Shades of Mercy" series on racial bias in presidential pardons . The series was a finalist for the Harvard Shorenstein Center's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting . Linzer also conducted work on the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under the Obama presidency , which won a 2010 Overseas Press Club Award and an honorable mention for

1530-507: The subjects of the reporting wish the matters under scrutiny to remain undisclosed. There are currently university departments for teaching investigative journalism. Conferences are conducted presenting peer-reviewed research into investigative journalism. British media theorist Hugo de Burgh (2000) states that: "An investigative journalist is a man or woman whose profession is to discover the truth and to identify lapses from it in whatever media may be available. The act of doing this generally

1575-552: The successes of the early muckrakers continued to inspire journalists. The outlook for investigative journalism in the United States was improved by the 1960s with the Freedom of Information Act and New York Times Co. v. Sullivan . The invention of the photocopier also offered an assistive tool to whistleblowers . The growth of media conglomerates in the U.S. since the 1980s has been accompanied by massive cuts in

1620-534: Was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her series that followed immigrants on Long Island whose lives were shattered by a botched crackdown on MS-13 . In May 2020, ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for illuminating public safety gaps in Alaska . In that same year, ProPublica also won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for coverage of the United States Navy and

1665-724: Was born in 1970 and raised in Canada. She is of Jewish descent. Linzer was a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, based in Jerusalem . She then became a national security reporter for The Washington Post , where she covered intelligence and nonproliferation , and reported on the futile search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq . In February 2008, the non-profit journalism organization ProPublica announced that Linzer (along with Jeff Gerth ) would be joining

1710-405: Was controversial, drawing criticism from doctors and prompting a critique from RAND . However, statisticians, including Andrew Gelman , stood behind their decision to attempt to shine light on an opaque aspect of the medical field, and ProPublica offered specific rebuttals to RAND's claims. ProPublica has created an interactive map that allows people to search for addresses in New York City to see

1755-501: Was criticized in a Twitter thread by journalist Yashar Ali for what he called "inappropriate and unethical" conduct. Ali claimed that Linzer had bullied him on behalf of the Democratic National Committee to delay a story for publication. He wrote, "I realized that @DafnaLinzer, the head of all political coverage for NBC News and MSNBC wasn't calling to advocate for her network, she was calling to advocate

1800-701: Was nominated to lead the CIA , sparking renewed scrutiny of her record. The correction affected the credibility and impact of reporting on this topic, as highlighted by discussions in major news outlets like AP News . In 2023, ProPublica launched an investigative series uncovering the complexities and delays in repatriating Native American remains and cultural items under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act ( NAGPRA ). The series exposed institutional resistance from museums and universities, driving significant policy discussions and increased efforts toward compliance. This investigative work earned Mary Hudetz

1845-543: Was published in conjunction with the Los Angeles Times . In 2017, ProPublica launched the Documenting Hate project for systematic tracking of hate crimes and bias incidents . The project is part of their Civil Rights beat, and allows victims or witnesses of hate crime incidents to submit stories. The project also allows journalists and newsrooms to partner with ProPublica to write stories based on

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1890-485: Was reported to have received 850 applications upon ProPublica's announcement. The organization appointed a 12-member advisory board of professional journalists. The newsgroup shares its work under the Creative Commons no-derivative, non-commercial license. On August 5, 2015, Yelp announced a partnership with ProPublica to bring improved healthcare data into Yelp's statistics on healthcare providers. While

1935-497: Was the brainchild of Herbert and Marion Sandler , the former chief executives of the Golden West Financial Corporation , who have committed $ 10 million a year to the project. The Sandlers hired Paul Steiger , former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal , to create and run the organization as editor in chief. At the time ProPublica was set up, Steiger responded to concerns about the role of

1980-427: Was the first time a Pulitzer was awarded to a group of stories not published in print. In 2016, ProPublica won its third Pulitzer Prize, this time for Explanatory Reporting , in collaboration with The Marshall Project for "a startling examination and exposé of law enforcement 's enduring failures to investigate reports of rape properly and to comprehend the traumatic effects on its victims." In 2017, ProPublica and

2025-453: Was written by ProPublica's Sheri Fink and published in The New York Times Magazine as well as on ProPublica.org. This was the first Pulitzer awarded to an online news source. The article also won the 2010 National Magazine Award for Reporting . In 2011, ProPublica won its second Pulitzer Prize. Reporters Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for their series, The Wall Street Money Machine . This

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