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Queens Prosecutors Long Overlooked Misconduct. Can a New D.A. Do Better?

Troy Closson

January 27, 2021 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

On her first day as district attorney of Queens, Melinda Katz created a unit to review potential wrongful convictions that in its first year has exonerated four men and has 80 more cases under review. The Queens DA's office long resisted the national trend toward such "conviction integrity" units, based on its contention that all prosecutors should be open to fixing their mistakes. The office, however, showed little inclination to do so systematically. Katz put the new unit under the control of a former lawyer with the Innocence Project and showed a resolve to take claimed injustices more seriously.

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How residents are working to make Ramapuram a better place to live in

Bhavani Prabhakar

January 27, 2021 |

Citizen Matters |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: India, Ramapuram

Active civic participation by residents and associations, such as the Ramapuram Social Welfare Federation, supports the identification of civic problems and escalation to the appropriate authorities. When the local lake, key to the city’s groundwater supply, was developed and polluted, the federation got local authorities to intervene and stop building on the lake bed. They also filed a lawsuit demanding the lake be restored and all people evicted from the area. The federation worked through official channels to covert land into a public use park and established an urban forest with rich biodiversity.

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How 60 reporters from 25 media outlets in 18 countries are finishing the work of murdered journalists

Amaris Castillo

January 25, 2021 |

Poynter |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Mexico

The Cartel Project formed an international team of journalists that produced a five-part series on the murder of Mexican journalist Regina Martinez. The series also explored the subjects that Martinez's killers attempted to silence: particulars about drug trafficking and political corruption. The project was founded on the principle that journalism must be a cross-border collaboration to counter transnational crime syndicates. The series documented the role Mexicans play in the international drug business and in spying on and censoring journalists who seek to reveal these secrets.

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What Happened When Activists Took Over Vacant Homes in Los Angeles

Maansi Shah

January 21, 2021 |

Next City |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Los Angeles, California

Vacant homes owned by the state of California were occupied in protest by activists in Los Angeles who want to bring attention to the homelessness crisis. Known as the Reclaim and Rebuild Our Community collective, the activists’ stance is “homes should be used to house the City’s growing homeless population.” As a result of the tactic, 25 homes have been successfully transferred to the Los Angeles Housing Authority.

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Still Can't Breathe: How NYPD Officers Continue to Use Chokeholds on Civilians

Yoav Gonen Topher Sanders

January 21, 2021 |

The City |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

New York Police Department banned chokeholds in 1993, to prevent unnecessary injury and death. The practice has been scrutinized especially closely since the 2014 death of Eric Garner. But despite hundreds of complaints alleging the forbidden use of chokeholds, no NYPD officer has been fired for using a chokehold since 2014, nor have any complaints yielded more than some lost vacation time as a penalty. The failure of the policy stems from many causes, including ambiguity in the policy and its enforcement and lack of respect for investigative findings of the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

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A Tale of Two Karens

Cecily Sailer Jim Tuttle

January 20, 2021 |

Yes! Magazine |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Pennsylvania

Braver Angels formed after the 2016 election to depolarize politics. The group’s Red / Blue Workshops bring together equal numbers of liberals and conservatives for structured conversations to help people build trust, understand one another, find commonalities, and learn lessons to bring back to their communities. It is rooted in couples and family therapy, with an emphasis on active listening and reflecting back what you hear. Instructions for organizing a workshop are on the group’s website and they have about 11,000 members, with a recent online event, Hold America Together, attracting 4,500 viewers.

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Where surveillance cameras work but the justice system doesn't

Madeleine Wattenbarger

January 19, 2021 |

Rest of World |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: Mexico, Mexico City

Mexico City's 11-year-old video surveillance system, one of the most advanced in the world, was a massive investment in public safety: about $660 million to date to cover the city with more than 30,000 cameras and other devices. Like so much else in Mexico's law enforcement apparatus, it has done little to control crime but instead has become a tool of corruption and official impunity. While the cameras have helped keep tourists and elites safer, the vast majority of crimes go unreported and only a tiny number of police investigations benefit from the surveillance system.

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A Thin Green Line With Global Impact

Robert McClure

January 18, 2021 |

InvestigateWest |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

For over a decade, environmentalists, Indigenous tribes, ranchers, politicians, scientists, and fishers in the Pacific Northwest have been able to defeat more than 20 proposals from coal and oil firms to ship fossil fuels from their ports. Through protests, public hearings, and petitions to government agencies, activists blacked almost every fossil fuel effort in the region between 2004 and 2017.

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“What You Share Defines You”: Indonesia Has World's Biggest Fact-Checking Network

Meleva Thorn Sienna Curnow

January 16, 2021 |

The Jakarta Globe |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Indonesia

CekFakta is a collaborative network that fights misinformation with around 6,000 fact-checkers from major Indonesian media organizations, citizens, and academics. The group holds training sessions to help journalists identify doctored images and misinformation, with the idea that participants will pass the skills on to their colleagues. CekFakta impacted 2019 presidential debates with large-scale, real-time, collaborative fact-checking that enabled a quick release of fact-checked information. The collaborative process is key to helping people find high-quality information amid so much online content.

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By backing Raphael Warnock against Kelly Loeffler, Sue Bird and the WNBA helped flip the Senate

Percy Allen

January 16, 2021 |

The Seattle Times |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

During her bid for reelection, former senator Kelly Loeffler, also co-owner of a WNBA team, publicly fought with the league for dedicating its season to Black Lives Matters and fighting for racial justice. Players decided collectively to stop talking publicly about Loeffler to limit her media attention. Next, after carefully vetting candidates they decided Raphael Warnock best represented their interests. In a public endorsement, players across the league wore VOTE WARNOCK shirts to nationally televised games. Within days, Warnock gained 4,000 Twitter followers, raised over $250,000, and gained in the polls.

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