Story Idea Blitz

@MeganLuther
Investigating out-of-hospital midwifery
Failure to Deliver HOW THE RISE OF OUT-OF-HOSPITAL BIRTHS PUTS MOTHERS AND BABIES AT RISK .

Emily Le Coz
GateHouse Media
@emily_lecoz

gatehousenews.com/failuretodeliver/
CDC WONDER

Easy-to-use, web-based data query portal that displays

results you can export into a text file. Includes much (but
not all) of the info you can find in the flattened data files.

wonder.cdc.gov
CDC downloadable data files
A more robust data set, but
difficult to use. Requires statistical
software or a programming
workaround to convert flattened
file (no column headers) into a
queryable data set.

cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/vitalstatsonline.htm
Out-of-hospital births are deadlier
0-27 days analysis
3x more likely to die after home delivery
with a midwife versus hospital delivery with
a midwife

4x for babies of first-time moms

https://github.com/GateHouseMedia/PLBID
Out-of-hospital births are deadlier
0-27 days analysis
3x more likely to die after home delivery
with a midwife versus hospital delivery with
a midwife

4x for babies of first-time moms

0-6 days analysis

5x more likely to die after home delivery
with a midwife versus hospital delivery with
a midwife

8x for babies of first-time moms

https://github.com/GateHouseMedia/PLBID
How many hospital transfers? (A lot.)
Hundreds of FOIAs shows lax oversight
First-of-its-kind database

http://gatehousenews.com/failuretodeliver/explore-the-database/
Data sources
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention — mainly these two links:
cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/vitalstatsonline.htm
wonder.cdc.gov/

Local, state and federal court systems — too many to list, but ...
pacer.gov/psco/cgi-bin/links.pl
iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/HomePage

State agencies — too many to list, but ...

appsmqa.doh.state.fl.us/MQASearchServices/EnforcementActionsPractitioner
oregon.gov/OHA/PH/HLO/Pages/Disciplinary-Actions.aspx
 Joseph Neff
jneff@themarshallproject.org
212-803-5245

The a=
Harvesting financial benefits from financial burdens

Agents (owners) split fees 50-50 with sub-agents

Almost half from misdemeanors

 Criminal justice actors but regulated by civil authorities

Sources

1 - Department of Insurance for data, complaint files, regulations

2 - Rules of Criminal Procedure - as a rule, judges don’t follow the rules

3 - Industry - trade association newsletters

4 - political contributions, lobbyist filings

5 - Sheriffs

6 - National Association of Insurance Commissioners

Insurance Department data

1 - Good financial information

BUT - agents input data

2 - Poor criminal justice information

3 - No public safety function

Investigating Land
Ownership
Tristan Ahtone
Uncovering stories in
school data
Bullying and Seclusion/Restraint

Kara Kenney, WRTV (ABC) Indianapolis

Kara.kenney@wrtv.com
Bullying Incidents By School
▪ All 50 states should have an anti-bullying policy in place
▪ Many states require states to track bullying incidents AND report it to the
State Department of Education

▪ Ask your state for that data

▪ If they don’t have data, do your own survey of schools on bullying

▪ Look for trends

▪ Who is reporting a lot of bullying? Who is reporting zero? Are they accurate?

▪ Talk to parents and school leaders about their bullying #s

 That time we asked one school district superintendent
about their bullying zeroes…….

Our story changed Indiana law, and you can help change the law in your state too!
Seclusion Rooms
can also be called
calming rooms,
quiet rooms, or
cool down rooms
Restraint is when a
child is put in a
manual hold typically
to prevent them from
hurting themselves
Seclusion Rooms and Use of Restraint

▪ U.S. Department of Education requires all schools to report seclusion and

restraint data as part of the annual Civil Rights Data Collection

▪ Ask your state department of education for their seclusion and restraint
data

▪ Look for trends and who is reporting zero. Ask why?

▪ Follow up with schools to make sure they reported accurate

▪ Parent groups, the ARC, autism & special needs groups are great resources
You might find school districts misreported…
FOOD
SAFETY
A recipe for accountability
journalism - and story success!

Simple Snacks

Paula Lavigne By Your Name

@pinepaula
About the story
- Through public records requests and online downloads, we collected more
than 16,000 food-safety inspection reports.
- Reports were for food outlets at the 111 professional football, baseball,
basketball and hockey facilities across North America.
- Sources were city, county, state and provincial health departments.
- Covered two calendar years, 2016 and 2017
- Also requested complaints filed with health departments over multiple years

Appeared on television and online, with interactive graphic on Dec. 13, 2018.

https://tinyurl.com/ESPNFoodGraphic and https://tinyurl.com/ESPNFoodStoryVideo

Recipes
 Comparison data
● Hazel Analytics has community-wide
inspection data for several metro
areas
● Allowed us to compare sports venues
against community averages
● Help account for jurisdictional
hazelanalytics.com differences in inspector diligence and
violation definitions
● Used the metric of average number
of “critical” violations per inspection
 At about 28 percent of the venues, half or more of their food
service outlets incurred one or more high-level violations, the
type of unsanitary conditions or omissions that can pose a risk
for a foodborne illness. Great anecdotes!

Most Cracker Jack boxes

‘Marlins Man’ tells of how he uncovered a
rash of food-poisoned fans at Yankee
Stadium, and we discover the incident was
never report to authorities
come with a surprise inside.
At Coors Field in Denver,
the molasses-flavored
popcorn and peanut snacks
came with a live mouse.
A health department
inspector found the mouse
in a commercial-size bag of
Cracker Jack at Coors Field
in September 2016, along
with five live cockroaches in
a trap in a storage room.
 YOU CAN DO THIS!
- Understand how your health department defines
the severity of violations, i.e. critical/non-critical,
major/minor, priority/priority foundation.
- Think beyond restaurants to sports venues,
hospitals, school/college cafeterias,
fairs/festivals, prisons, food trucks, etc.
- Request the forms if possible, because the
inspector narrative is where you get the great
stories.
- Use the forms to help input your data.
- Request all types of inspections, including
reinspections. Repeat offenders are worth
noting.
- Complaints are helpful in tracking down
sickened patrons …
- … but so is social media! People love to share
food, especially when it makes them vomit!
Data fields
Inspections Violations
● ID You can choose to create a column
● Date for each possible violation, but that
● Type of inspection would mean possibly 30+ columns.
● Location
● Violations by type and You could create a column for
severity each group of violations, such as
● Narrative pests, improper temperatures,
● Score poor employee hygiene, etc.
In either case, you would note the
number of applicable violations in
each cell.
In addition, you should create a
column for each severity type, such
as critical/non-critical so you know
for each venue how many
violations of what severity were
found.
Make sure to note reinspections,
initial inspections, or inspections
prompted by a complaint.
Lastly, cross reference inspection
dates with the schedule at that
location: Are inspections being
done when the location is empty
and no food is being prepared?
Contact
Paula Lavigne
paula.lavigne@espn.com

Sandra Fish
fishnette@gmail.com
Investigating the Alcohol
Industry

Or, the forgotten member of the Merchants of Death

Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones
The Alcohol Industry is an Oligopoly
Nearly 75 percent of the US beer industry is controlled by just two companies, AB
InBev and MolsonCoors. They don’t always play fair.

● Anti-competitive behavior
● Massive lobbying arm
● Local powerbrokers
Alcohol kills 90,000 People a Year
Alcohol kills nearly twice as many people as opioids every year, and the numbers
are going up. It’s also a carcinogen, responsible for 15 percent of all breast cancer
deaths.
Big Booze Behaves Like Big Tobacco
Sometimes they are one and the same.

● Manipulated science/doctors on the take

● Astroturf public health groups:
○ Responsiblity.org
● Marketing to kids and women
There are no booze lawyers
● There has never been a successful lawsuit against an alcohol company
● There are virtually no watchdog groups. Everyone takes the money.
● The industry is incredibly good at co-opting people—and that includes you.
Investigating pay-to-play
If it walks like a duck …
and it talks like a duck …
QUAC
K
QUAC
K
Pay to play checklist …
❑ Does the official have the authority to
award contracts?
❑ Is the official getting a lot of contributions?
❑ Are a lot of the contracts going to
companies or individuals who made
contributions?

If you checked all three boxes, then you have pay to play!
Pay attention and ask questions
- Be familiar with how your government awards contracts – RFPs, bid
procedures, public notice
- Look for big contracts and ask for RFPs, responsive bids
- If someone is getting a lot of campaign donations, keep track and
start asking why
- If a deal doesn’t make sense – ask why it is going forward
It’s probably legal … unless …
• Pay-to-play becomes a crime when there is an explicit agreement
between a donor and an official that an action be taken in exchange
for a donation – quid pro quo.
• Merely the presence of contributions doesn’t prove anything. There
has to be proof of a deal.
• But keep asking the question. “Sorry, but I have to ask, was this
contract awarded because the company donated to your campaign?”
• Stenger said: “The Post-Dispatch narrative concerning my campaign
contributions is misleading and tiresome.”
Mark Walker
The New York Times
Duane Pohlman
● Construction companies
○ $480M on capital improvements
over the last five years, including:
■ Madison Construction $45M
-- 47% over budget.
● Construction management
companies
○ Globetrotters Engineering $3.5M
to assess elevators, but not to fix.
● Building managers
○ $$ millions to maintain properties
● Elevator maintenance
companies
○ $1M per year