"Is it as good as sex? I don't know. But . . . it's better than drugs and booze, I can tell you that." -- Joe Demma, investigations editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, on publishing a celebrated investigation

A year and a half before the Federal Emergency Management Agency made national news with its botched response to Hurricane Katrina, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel was already on top of the story of waste and fraud at the troubled agency. The head of FEMA, Michael Brown, dismissed the paper's reporting. But the story wouldn't blow over, and as Hurricane Katrina approached Louisiana the whole country would become painfully aware of what the South Florida Sun-Sentinel already knew: FEMA was a national disaster in itself.