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A devastating hurricane leaves thousands in the dark as millions of tax dollars are wasted because of mismanaged federal aid. No, we're not talking about Hurricane Katrina. A full year before the incompetence of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in New Orleans dominated national headlines, one South Florida newspaper revealed similar patterns of fraud and mismanagement in the wake of another storm: Hurricane Frances.
>> Find out how the SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL reporters cracked the case in EXPOSÉ's "Crisis Mismanagement" -- streamed online tomorrow.
A year after publishing revelations of widespread corruption at the Miami-Dade Housing Agency, the MIAMI HERALD reported similar problems at the city of Miami’s own agency last month in House of Lies 2: Miami’s Crisis. Reporters Debbie Cenziper, Oscar Corral, and Larry Lebowitz pored through city records to uncover more than $10 million in outstanding loans to developers for public housing projects that were never completed—or in some cases, even started. The city also failed to learn from its mistakes, continuing to grant lucrative loans and contracts to local developers with track records of delays and incomplete work. Some of the allegations struck close to Miami’s political power elite: one of the largest outstanding loans was $700,000 granted to Alberto Lorenzo, Mayor Manny A. Diaz’s campaign manager.
But the most egregious cases of corruption were within Miami housing director Barbara Gomez’s own family. Gomez—already reeling from the scandals entangling ex-husband Rene Rodriguez , longtime director of the county housing agency—approved loans to local non-profits employing both another ex-husband, Ruben A. Santana, and their son, Ruben A. Santana, Jr. The agency went forward with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of loans, even though the federal department of Housing and Urban Development ruled that the blood connection represented a conflict of interest.
Soon after the articles were published last month, the HERALD reported that Gomez was being forced out of the head position. On July 12, Gomez, director of the Community Development Department since 2003, was fired after she failed to accept a demotion.
How did Miami developers use a mismanaged public housing agency as their own personal ATM? Find out on EXPOSÉ's "Money for Nothing," premiering on PBS tonight. Check local listings.
>> Annie Wong, producer of "Money for Nothing," talks about reporter Debbie Cenziper and the implications of the Miami housing story for the rest of the country.
Miami is not the only city plagued with an ineffectual public housing system. Corruption, embezzlement, and general foot-dragging are commonplace in this murky web of developers and officials across the country.
SAN FRANCISCO
In the city by the bay, San Francisco’s Housing Authority is leaving hundreds of public housing units vacant because they’re damaged. Meanwhile, many of the units currently in use are decrepit and riddled with housing-, fire-, and health-code violations.
And consider Ronnie Davis, executive director of the San Francisco Housing Authority. In 1996, when he was chief operating officer for the Cleveland housing authority, he was appointed acting executive director of the San Francisco Housing Authority after HUD took over the troubled agency. But Davis’s tenure as director would soon be overshadowed by a grand jury inquiry into questionable financial dealings during his tenure in Cleveland.
CLEVELAND
Why go to the bank when you can use taxpayer funds as your own private ATM? That was apparently the thinking among Cleveland housing officials, who redirected hundreds of thousands of dollars from projects for the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority serving the Cleveland metropolitan area to personal bonuses and their own mortgage payments. In 2001, an Ohio federal grand jury indicted Ronnie Davis, then director of the San Francisco Housing Authority, and Claire Freeman, his former boss at the Cleveland housing authority. Amidst allegations that Davis’s time at SFHA was also not blemish free, Davis pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge in the Cleveland case, receiving only probation for cooperating with authorities against Freeman, who was eventually sentenced to 18 months in jail .
OAKLAND
In Oakland, California, the city attorney sued the city's housing authority for allegations that the public agency created unsafe housing conditions, where many residents live in dilapidated buildings filled with mold, in areas plagued by gangs and drug dealers.
 A housing agency with a nationally lauded leader. A property tax passed by voters to fund new affordable housing. A city pockmarked with empty lots. Debbie Cenziper could tell that something was not right in Miami-Dade County as she drove past empty lots on her way to work. The MIAMI HERALD investigative reporter was determined to figure out what was preventing construction of new affordable homes, which should have been funded by Miami’s innovative surtax.
What she found went far beyond the normal bureaucratic gridlock that residents of one of America’s most expensive cities had grown used to. When Cenziper began to examine the financial records of the Miami-Dade Housing Agency she found widespread abuses that drained the agency’s hard-earned tax revenue without delivering the promised housing. Mounting construction delays, mismanagement, and poor oversight of projects led to a waiting list that reached 40,000 people -- including Miamians like Ozie Porter, whose anger at the housing agency was matched only by her desire for a home of her own.
This week on EXPOSÉ, how Cenziper exposed the corruption at the heart of the system, writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning series that led to criminal indictments and Miami-Dade housing reforms.
>> Read THE MIAMI HERALD's original reporting, "House of Lies", and check out the additional multimedia features. Visit the MIAMI HERALD site for continuing coverage in this series.
Tomorrow on the EXPOSÉ site: How developers reaped millions in tax dollars from a mismanaged Miami public housing agency –- yet managed to build very few of the promised homes.
>> Check back tomorrow to watch the full episode of "Money for Nothing" online.
When she wasn't analyzing air samples, HOUSTON CHRONICLE reporter Dina Cappiello was investigating another environmental crisis: the Dead Zone. It's a giant swath of ocean in the Gulf of Mexico where oxygen drops so low that it is unable to support some marine life. The Dead Zone forms each summer due to the fertilizer and wastewater runoff that makes its way to the Gulf via North America's rivers. The nutrient overload causes an excessive algae bloom -- when the algae die and decompose, they use up all the oxygen in a particular area. All oxygen-breathing marine life in the zone must flee or die. The Dead Zone changes each year, but can be as large as the state of New Jersey. There are other dead zones around the world.
Cappiello spent a week aboard a research vessel with scientists on the hunt for the Dead Zone. Read her blogs from the journey here.
Go behind the scenes with HOUSTON CHRONICLE reporter Dina Cappiello as she reveals how she uncovered dangerously high levels of industrial air pollutants in Texas neighborhoods.
EXPOSÉ's "The Scientific Method" premieres on PBS tonight. Check local listings.
Reporter Dina Cappiello found shockingly high levels of toxic air pollutants in neighborhoods around Houston and Southeast Texas. According to the American Lung Association, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Bakersfield, and Birmingham also rank among the cities with the most air pollution.
Which cities have the cleanest air? Cheyenne, Wyoming tops the list, followed by Santa Fe, New Mexico; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Great Falls, Montana.
>> Worried about your town? Find out if the EPA is tracking toxic releases in your zip code. Check out the Air Quality Index for local air quality conditions and forecasts.
In a city built on oil and industry money, Houstonians have a name for the odor that emanates from its numerous industrial facilities: “the smell of money.” But for some residents, it also marks a dangerous public health threat: high levels of toxic air pollutants that have been linked to cancer, kidney and liver damage, as well as respiratory illnesses. In one neighborhood, levels of the carcinogen benzene were so high that one scientist said living there would be like "sitting in traffic 24-7."
Following her nose, HOUSTON CHRONICLE reporter Dina Cappiello sought to prove definitively that, despite industry denials, the neighborhoods around refineries and petrochemical plants suffer from the smokestacks that release these chemicals in their midst. With help from neighborhood residents, she planted air pollution sensors around some of Houston’s worst polluters, documenting the public health menace of air toxins as well as the ineptitude of the state regulators charged with protecting the public from these very threats.
This week, EXPOSÉ premieres "The Scientific Method" online with the shocking results of the CHRONICLE’s investigation.
>> Read Dina Cappiello's original reports in the HOUSTON CHRONICLE.
>> What are the nation's most polluted cities? Which cities have the cleanest air? Check back tomorrow on the Blog to find out.
Tomorrow on the EXPOSÉ site: With a smell in the air, residue on their cars, and their eyes occasionally burning, residents of Houston's "fenceline" communities - those that border many of the cities petrochemical plants - have often wondered what it was they were breathing. And when HOUSTON CHRONICLE environmental reporter Dina Cappiello knocked on their door, they were about to find out.
>> Watch the full episode of "The Scientific Method" on the EXPOSÉ site tomorrow.
 It's possible that you've never heard of Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. As reporters, they keep a low public profile. They are, some might say, "old school" investigative reporters – relishing the opportunity to plow through documents and databases to produce comprehensive investigations. Last week's EXPOSÉ spotlighted the duo's recent inquiry into one of the defense department's highest-paid “body shops." But Barlett and Steele have been exposing government and corporate malfeasance since 1971, when they started working together at the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER -- a tenure that lasted 26 years until they moved to TIME magazine. Then, last year, TIME laid off more than 600 people in a budget crunch. The veteran reporters were among those let go -- a move that many decried as evidence of the downfall of investigative journalism in a rapidly shrinking industry.
Now contributing editors at VANITY FAIR, Barlett and Steele are digging back in and doing what they do best: hard-hitting investigative reporting. After careers that produced prize-winning investigations -- merited two Pulitzers and two National Magazine Awards, among other awards – they have set journalistic benchmarks for more than 30 years. A few of the highlights:
• In 1972, they analyzed more than 1,000 cases of violent crime in Philadelphia for “Crime and Injustice." It was the largest computer-assisted project of its time.
• Their PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER newspaper series "America: What Went Wrong" dissected the nation's ongoing recession and was so popular the paper received more than 400,000 requests for reprints. The nine-part series was published as a book in 1992.
• A TIME magazine series in 1998 exposed government economic incentives to businesses as a form of "corporate welfare" that turned "politicians into bribery specialists, and smart business people into con artists."
• In 2004, the two set out to diagnose how porous the U.S.-Mexico border actually was. Their investigation for TIME revealed that the border had grown less, not more, secure since 9/11.
Check back later this week for web-exclusive video of the pair discussing their work together over the past 30 years.
EXPOSÉ's "Friends in High Places" airs on PBS tonight. Check local listings for your area. Watch the reporting duo Barlett and Steele as they unveil the inner workings of SAIC -- one of the most powerful defense contractors in the country.
>> Coming soon: Barlett and Steele talk about how investigative journalism has changed over the years in a web-exclusive interview.
Halliburton. Lockheed Martin. Raytheon. Meet the other top ten federal contractors hired to do heavy lifting for the Department of Defense -- and find out what they've been up to lately.
1. Lockheed Martin Corp.
2. Boeing Co.
3. Northrop Grumman Corp.
4. General Dynamics Corp.
5. Raytheon Co.
6. Halliburton Co.
7. L-3 Communications Holdings
8. United Technologies Corp.
9. SAIC
10. Bechtel Inc.
You've probably never heard of SAIC before. That's okay. SAIC prefers you know nothing about how it -- one of the most powerful and highest paid government contractors -- operates. In the next episode of EXPOSÉ, the esteemed investigative reporting duo Donald Barlett and James Steele explore the inner workings of Science Applications International Corporation and reveal a world of Washington insiders moving smoothly between this mysterious company and the federal government.
>> The original reporting for "Friends in High Places" was published in a March 2007 VANITY FAIR article entitled "Washington's $8 Billion Shadow."
>> Read reports on SAIC at the Center for Public Integrity (part of their broader coverage of contractors working in Afghanistan and Iraq entitled “Windfalls of War”) and Sourcewatch.
Tomorrow on the EXPOSÉ site: the online premiere of "Friends in High Places." With the Federal government’s increasing reliance on private corporations for military and intelligence projects, many government contractors have already become household names – but there is a multi-billion dollar company, one that has received more private government contracts than any other, that you’ve probably never heard of: Science Applications International Corporation. SAIC, as it is known, has a workforce of 44,000, annual revenues that reached $8 billion in 2006, and a list of current and former board members that reads like a who’s who of political and military heavyweights. In a story for VANITY FAIR, the venerable investigative team of Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele pull back the curtain of government contracting to reveal that even though "several of SAIC's biggest projects have turned out to be colossal failures," in the end, the company always manages to get paid.
>> Watch the full episode tomorrow on the EXPOSÉ site.
In the spring and summer of 2006, our two journalists for the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE found themselves making the news instead of reporting it. Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada had published leaked grand jury testimony in their reporting on steroids in professional sports and soon found themselves in a legal standoff about revealing the source of the testimony. In September, a federal judge threatened the journalists with 18 months in prison if they failed to reveal their sources. The threat was real. The previous year NEW YORK TIMES reporter Judith Miller had served nearly 3 months for refusing to testify in the investigation into leaks of a CIA operative's name by White House officials. And freelance blogger Josh Wolf had just been returned to jail. Wolf had refused to turn over video he shot of a San Francisco protest against the G8 Summit in 2005 -- video that federal officials claimed contained footage of protesters damaging a police car. Wolf would eventually serve 226 days, setting the record for an American journalist, for his failure to comply with a subpoena.
“When a reporter lies down with confidential sources, he should be prepared to get up with prosecutorial fleas.” – Jack Shafer, SLATE
Fainaru-Wada and Williams were not without their supporters. Back in June, 35 news organizations filed an amicus brief in support of the CHRONICLE’s attempts to quash the subpoena that required the reporters to divulge their source. There was also at least one more grassroots approach: wearing white t-shirts with blue print proclaiming “Sportswriters for Freedom of the Press,” a group of sports reporters gathered by Rick Telander of the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, showed up at court that September and also launched a “Free Mark and Lance” site in defense of the reporters.
Kept out of jail during the appeals process, the reporters were very close to running out of time in February 2007 when the source of the illegally leaked grand jury testimony was revealed to be Troy Ellerman, one of the BALCO defense attorneys. Ellerman admitted in court documents that he allowed Fainaru-Wada access to confidential grand jury transcripts. Following Ellerman's plea, federal prosecutors withdrew the subpoenas issued to the reporters and to the newspaper. The reporters were eventually officially cleared of all findings of contempt.
Although Fainaru-Wada and Williams have refused to confirm that Ellerman was their source – maintaining still that they will protect their sources – the revelation that Ellerman was the probable leaker in the case has, to some, cast a shadow over the reporters. Soon after the revelations that Ellerman was the likely source, in a move highly unusual for a newspaper, the LOS ANGELES TIMES came out against the reporters, alleging that they had only protected their own self interests. According to the LA TIMES, the reporters had maintained their silence while Ellerman attempted to have the case dismissed, and even worse, had probably obtained more leaked testimony from him after Ellerman had lied in court. “Sleazy and contemptible,” proclaimed the LA TIMES, comparable to the journalistic missteps committed in the run-up to the Iraq War and the “sleazy double-dealing” of Washington journalists working the system. In response to criticisms of the paper and the reporters, the CHRONICLE responded that the reporters had been left “unscathed” by the revelations, but that the federal shield law and the reputation of journalists in general remained in peril. SLATE found the whole “BALCO mess” and its “travels in the gray areas of confidential source arrangement” troubling and concluded that the CHRONICLE had left unanswered several questions about its “morally ambiguous relationship with Ellerman” and its failure to stop or inform the public about a crime in progress.
“To assert any form of journalistic privilege in a situation like that is something far worse than moral obtuseness. Conspiring with somebody you know is actively perverting the administration of justice to your mutual advantage is a betrayal of the public interest whose protection is the only basis on which journalistic privilege of any sort has a right to assert itself.” – Tim Rutten, LOS ANGELES TIMES
The jury is still out on whether the reporters committed “no crime” in their silence. Along with numerous other cases that have grabbed headlines in recent years, the BALCO case raises interesting questions about the limits and uses of a federal shield law. Ironically, in a later article, the LOS ANGELES TIMES concluded that it would be fine with them if a federal shield law gave a “get-out-of-jail-free card” to Fainaru-Wada and Williams. Sometimes it’s necessary to defend the principle and all reporters, concluded the LA TIMES, in order to ensure that “courageous public-interest journalism” is protected.
EXPOSÉ’s "Becoming the Story" broadcasts tonight on PBS. Check local listings for your area.
>> Next week on the Blog: Did journalists Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada cross a line in their pursuit of the truth? Weigh in below.
The star athletes implicated in the steroids scandal over the years may have drawn the biggest headlines, but you can get the lowdown on all the participants – the steroid middlemen, the reporters, the lawyers, the politicians – in our "Meet the Players” feature.
For what happened when – including the most recent developments – check out our timeline of BALCO events.
 "Becoming the Story" premieres online today. Follow veteran sportswriter Mark Fainaru-Wada and longtime investigative journalist Lance Williams as they reveal the link between high-profile athletes and a Bay Area laboratory that distributed performance-enhancing steroids. Personally congratulated by President Bush for what he called “a service” to the public, Williams and Fainaru-Wada faced spending 18 months in prison for refusing to divulge the identity of a confidential source that had provided them with key evidence.
>> Read Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada’s original reporting in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, including the reporters’ first story to cite verbatim leaked grand jury testimony obtained from a confidential source to their most recent story on former BALCO prosecutor Kevin Ryan. Check out THE CHRONICLE’s special page on the BALCO investigation for the paper’s complete coverage of the doping scandal and the reporters’ plight.
>> Also on the site. Happy Birthday, FOIA. It’s the 41st anniversary of the signing of the Freedom of Information Act by President Lyndon Johnson. Is the law that opened the government’s filing cabinets to public scrutiny having a mid-life crisis? Read "Forty-Odd Years of Freedom ... Sort of" by Tom Casciato, EXPOSÉ’s Executive Producer.
Blog content provided this week by the EXPOSÉ production team
 Tomorrow on the EXPOSÉ site: the online premiere of "Becoming the Story." EXPOSÉ returns to San Francisco and the steroid scandal that rocked the sports world. What happened to SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, who faced 18 months in prison for refusing to reveal their anonymous source?
>> Watch the full episode tomorrow on the EXPOSÉ site.
 The PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW wrote up a guide for other journalists planning projects similar to Carl Prine's investigation into the security of chemical plants and railroads. A condensed list of their advice:
1. Get the plans. First, go out and get the Risk Management Plans for every chemical facility in your county. Lawmakers are busy trying to close these documents off from the public, especially journalists. If you don't get them now, they'll be gone, and in the event of a chemical release in your community, you won't be able to tell your readers vital details about the calamity. Records once available to reporters in 2002 are already gone in 2007. Why put yourself at the mercy of corporate flacks and overburdened public agencies for information during a disaster? With the RMPs, you have what the company told the federal government could happen in a "worst case scenario."
2. Try to get into some plants. See if you can find ways to creep into chemical plants, but make sure you check with legal advisors first to see if your state has trespassing laws for walking onto sites. In a chemical facility, you can tell if you are near hazardous materials when tanks, pipes, or machines are marked with HAZMAT signs or an orange windsock.
3. Take photos of everything that isn’t strictly proprietary. Make sure you take pictures documenting your entire trip to the facility, from how you entered the facility to pictures of the tanks themselves. Also, be sure to take notes and write down the names of the officials in charge of safety as they are often listed on the chemical tanks.
4. Cultivate inside sources. Develop relationships with concerned employees within the state and federal government or chemical industry insiders. These sources might be able to supply you with reports or documents that could help your investigation.
5. Know the repercussions of your reporting. Be tough in your reporting, but realize that your investigation might result in employees being fired. When you call security officials and clue them in to your reporting on safety hazards at their facilities, in all likelihood, they will not want to talk to you. You should always call their bosses and let them know what you are reporting on well in advance before the story goes to print.
6. Prepare for the backlash. Be ready to deal with criticism, as many government officials and interest groups might take serious offense to your investigation. But remember to “think like a terrorist” during your reporting. Is a terrorist more likely to talk to public relations people and ask for tours of chemical facilities, or would a terrorist simply walk around to the back of the unfenced site?
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This guide is adapted from the PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW's official entry form to the Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. (IRE) annual awards competition. IRE’s contest recognizes the best in investigative reporting –- by print, broadcast and online media. A friend of this program, IRE has often provided the EXPOSE team with guidance as we produce the program and Web site. It’s a great resource for journalists and would-be journalists. Check out IRE at www.ire.org.
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A Companion Blog to Exposé, produced in association with CIR.
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