Pro Publica, Inc.
Founded2007 (2007)
Type501(c)(3)
14-2007220
FocusInvestigative journalism
Location
Area served
United States
Key people
Employees
> 100[1]
Websitewww.propublica.org

ProPublica (/proʊˈpʌblɪkə/),[2] legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit organization based in New York City dedicated to investigative journalism. ProPublica states that its 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 a story. ProPublica has partnered with more than 90 different news organizations and has won six Pulitzer Prizes.[3]

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,[4][5][6] and was published both in The New York Times Magazine[7] and ProPublica's website.[8]

History

ProPublica 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.[9] 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 the 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 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.[10]

ProPublica had an initial news staff of 28 reporters and editors,[11] including Pulitzer Prize winners Charles Ornstein, Tracy Weber, Jeff Gerth, and Marcus Stern. Steiger was reported to have received 850 applications[12] 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.[13]

On August 5, 2015, Yelp announced a partnership with ProPublica to bring improved healthcare data into Yelp's statistics on healthcare providers.[14]

Funding

While 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.[15] ProPublica and the Knight Foundation have various connections. For example, Paul Steiger, executive chairman of ProPublica, is a trustee of the Knight Foundation.[16] In like manner, Alberto Ibarguen, the president and CEO of the Knight Foundation is on the board of ProPublica.[17] ProPublica, along with other major news outlets, received grant funding from Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.[18]

ProPublica has attracted attention for the salaries it pays its employees.[19][20] In 2008, Paul Steiger, the editor of ProPublica, received a salary of $570,000.[21] Steiger was formerly the managing editor at The Wall Street Journal, where his total compensation (including options[21]) was double that at ProPublica.[22] Steiger's stated strategy is to use a Wall Street Journal pay model to attract journalistic talent.[23] 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 the Washington Post ($205,445).[24]

Awards

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."[25] It was written by ProPublica's Sheri Fink and published in The New York Times Magazine[7] as well as on ProPublica.org.[8] This was the first Pulitzer awarded to an online news source.[5][6] The article also won the 2010 National Magazine Award for Reporting.[26]

In 2011, ProPublica won its second Pulitzer Prize.[27] Reporters Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for their series, The Wall Street Money Machine. This 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."[28]

In 2017, ProPublica and 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.[29][30][31]

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.[32]

Also in 2019, ProPublica reporter Hannah Dreier 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.[33]

In May 2020, ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for illuminating public safety gaps in Alaska.[34]

In that same year, ProPublica also won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for coverage of the United States Navy and 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.[35]

In 2021 and 2022, ProPublica journalists Lisa Song and Mark Olalde won SEAL Awards for consistent excellence in environmental reporting.[36][37]

Notable reporting and projects

"An Unbelievable Story of Rape"

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.[38] The piece won a 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.[39] This piece was adapted into the 2019 Netflix series Unbelievable.[40]

Bias with COMPAS software

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.[41] 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 the opposite mistake among whites: They are much more likely than blacks to be labeled lower-risk but go on to commit other crimes.”[41][42][43] They also found that only 20 percent of people predicted to commit violent crimes actually went on to do so.[41]

COMPAS developer Northpointe criticized ProPublica’s methodology,[41] while a team at the Community Resources for Justice, a criminal justice think tank, published a rebuttal of the investigation's findings.[44]

Psychiatric Solutions

ProPublica conducted a large-scale, circumscribed investigation on Psychiatric Solutions, a company based in Tennessee that buys failing hospitals, cuts staff, and accumulates profit.[45] 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[46] by Florida officials once again.[47] Their report was published in conjunction with the Los Angeles Times.

Documenting Hate

In 2017, ProPublica launched the Documenting Hate project for systematic tracking of hate crimes and bias incidents.[48] 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 the dataset they are collecting. For example, the Minneapolis Star Tribune partnered with ProPublica to write about reporting of hate crimes in Minnesota.[49]

Surgeon Scorecard

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.[50] The database was controversial, drawing criticism from doctors and prompting a critique from RAND.[51][52] However, statisticians, including Andrew Gelman, stood behind their decision to attempt to shine light on an opaque aspect of the medical field,[53] and ProPublica offered specific rebuttals to RAND's claims.[54]

Tracking evictions and rent stabilization in New York City

ProPublica has created an interactive map that allows people to search for addresses in New York City to see the effects of eviction cases.[55] The app was nominated for a Livingston Award.[56]

Taxes paid by wealthiest Americans

In June 2021, after receiving leaked, hacked, or stolen[57][58] IRS documents, ProPublica published a report which showed that tax rates for the wealthiest Americans were significantly lower than the average middle class tax rate, when considering unrealized capital gains as being equivalent to earned income.[59] ProPublica would later reveal that technology investor and political donor Peter Thiel legally earned over $5 billion in a tax-free Roth IRA account through his investments in private companies.[60] Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers that investigating the source of the release would be a top priority for the Justice Department.[61]

Cancer-causing industrial air pollution map

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 the EPA deems unacceptable.[62][63] 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.[64] Additional "hot spots" identified on 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."[65]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "ProPublica Staff". Archived from the original on April 9, 2018. Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  2. ↑ "How Herb Sandler's ProPublica drove Governor Schwarzenegger to action in under 12 hours". The Bridgespan Group. November 27, 2013. Archived from the original on July 21, 2021. Retrieved July 21, 2021.
  3. ↑ William, William (December 9, 2020). "Richard Tofel interview: President of ProPublica on how 'Trump bump' helped donor-funded group triple in size". Press Gazette. Retrieved March 3, 2022.
  4. ↑ The 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winners: Investigative Reporting Archived April 15, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, accessed April 13, 2010
  5. 1 2 The Guardian, April 13, 2010, Pulitzer progress for non-profit news Archived September 27, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  6. 1 2 ProPublica, Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting: Deadly Choices at Memorial Archived June 13, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
  7. 1 2 Sheri Fink, New York Times Magazine, August 25, 2009, The Deadly Choices at Memorial Archived November 9, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  8. 1 2 ProPublica, August 27, 2009, The Deadly Choices at Memorial Archived June 26, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ Pérez-Peña, Richard (October 15, 2007). "Group Plans to Provide Investigative Journalism". New York Times. Archived from the original on July 13, 2011. Retrieved October 15, 2007.
  10. ↑ PBS Newshour, 24 June 2008, "Financing Independent Journalism" Archived January 22, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
  11. ↑ Calderone, Michael (July 10, 2008). "ProPublica will hire everyone". Politico.Com. Archived from the original on October 17, 2013. Retrieved October 18, 2013.
  12. ↑ Hirschman, David S. (February 13, 2008). "So What Do You Do, Paul Steiger, Editor-in-Chief, ProPublica?". Mediabistro. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved October 18, 2013.
  13. ↑ "Why (and How) We Use Creative Commons for Our Stories". ProPublica. December 13, 2012. Archived from the original on April 26, 2017. Retrieved April 25, 2017.
  14. ↑ "Yelp's Consumer Protection Initiative: ProPublica Partnership Brings Medical Info to Yelp - Yelp". August 5, 2015. Archived from the original on August 8, 2015. Retrieved August 6, 2015.
  15. ↑ Shafer, Jack (October 15, 2007). "What Do Herbert and Marion Sandler Want?". Slate. Archived from the original on May 18, 2015. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  16. ↑ "Board of Trustees - Knight Foundation". Knight Foundation. Archived from the original on January 20, 2013. Retrieved January 4, 2013.
  17. ↑ Alberto Ibargüen, President and CEO Archived July 31, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Knight Foundation
  18. ↑ Soave, Robby (November 21, 2022). "Did Sam Bankman-Fried's Millions Buy the Media's Loyalty?". reason.com. Reason. Retrieved December 1, 2022. Reason argues the stronger claim that Bankman-Fried encouraged the media to support left-leaning perspectives, but subsequent reporting suggests that Bankman-Fried's political position did not have a clean partisan slant; see Markay, Lachlan (December 13, 2022). "SBF's 'dirty money'". Politics & Policy. Axios.
  19. ↑ Turner, Zeke. "Shelling Out the Big Bucks at ProPublica | The New York Observer". Observer.com. Archived from the original on June 16, 2011. Retrieved February 23, 2012.
  20. ↑ Taylor, Mike (August 10, 2010). "ProPublica's Top-Paid Employees All Made Six Figures in 2009". Mediabistro.com (FishbowlNY). Archived from the original on August 15, 2010. Retrieved February 23, 2012.
  21. 1 2 "Philanthrocrat of the day, ProPublica edition". Reuters. September 30, 2009. Archived from the original on August 20, 2010. Retrieved August 12, 2010.
  22. ↑ "Diamonds in the Rough". Columbia Journalism Review. Archived from the original on February 23, 2012. Retrieved February 23, 2012.
  23. ↑ Turner, Zeke (August 11, 2010). "Shelling Out the Big Bucks at ProPublica". New York Observer. Archived from the original on February 8, 2016. Retrieved January 31, 2016.
  24. ↑ "ProPublica's Top-Paid Employees All Made Six Figures in 2009". Mediabistro.com. August 10, 2010. Archived from the original on August 15, 2010. Retrieved January 4, 2013.
  25. ↑ Pulitzer.org The 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winners: Investigative Reporting Archived April 15, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, accessed April 13, 2010
  26. ↑ "National Magazine Award Winners 1966-2015". American Society of Magazine Editors. Archived from the original on September 9, 2015. Retrieved May 9, 2017.
  27. ↑ "A Note on ProPublica's Second Pulitzer Prize". ProPublica. April 18, 2011. Archived from the original on February 23, 2012. Retrieved February 23, 2012.
  28. ↑ "T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project". Archived from the original on February 19, 2017. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
  29. ↑ "The Pulitzer Prizes: Public Service". Archived from the original on April 28, 2019. Retrieved April 11, 2017.
  30. ↑ "The 2017 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Public Service". Archived from the original on April 11, 2017. Retrieved April 11, 2017.
  31. ↑ "2017 Pulitzer Prize Winners". The New York Times. April 10, 2017. Archived from the original on April 11, 2017. Retrieved April 11, 2017.
  32. ↑ "Catalyst Award: ProPublica". Archived from the original on February 28, 2020. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
  33. ↑ "The 2019 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Feature Writing". Archived from the original on April 16, 2019. Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  34. ↑ Peltz, Jennifer (May 4, 2020). "'Riveting' coverage of Alaska policing wins Pulitzer Prize". Bangor Daily News. Archived from the original on May 20, 2020. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
  35. ↑ "T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi of ProPublica". pulitzer.org. Retrieved April 15, 2022.
  36. ↑ "Twelve Journalists Recognized as 2021 SEAL Environmental Journalism Award Winners". SEAL Awards. June 21, 2022. Retrieved December 19, 2023.
  37. ↑ "Twelve Journalists Recognized as 2022 SEAL Environmental Journalism Award Winners". SEAL Awards. February 8, 2023. Retrieved December 19, 2023.
  38. ↑ Miller, T Christian; Armstrong, Ken (December 16, 2015). "An Unbelievable Story of Rape". ProPublica and The Marshall Project. Archived from the original on July 18, 2019. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  39. ↑ "T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project". December 16, 2015. Archived from the original on July 18, 2019. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  40. ↑ Colburn, Randall (July 18, 2019). "Netflix unveils trailer for Unbelievable, a limited series based on Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting". AV Club. Archived from the original on January 3, 2020. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  41. 1 2 3 4 Angwin, Julia; Larson, Jeff (May 23, 2016). "Machine Bias". ProPublica. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
  42. ↑ Yong, Ed (January 17, 2018). "A Popular Algorithm Is No Better at Predicting Crimes Than Random People". Retrieved November 21, 2019.
  43. ↑ Israni, Ellora (October 26, 2017). "When an Algorithm Helps Send You to Prison (Opinion)". The New York Times. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
  44. ↑ Flores, Anthony; Lowenkamp, Christopher; Bechtel, Kristin. "False Positives, False Negatives, and False Analyses" (PDF). Community Resources for Justice. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
  45. ↑ Jewett, Christina; Robin Fields (November 23, 2008). "Psychiatric care's perils and profits". Los Angeles Times. ProPublica. Archived from the original on May 18, 2015. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  46. ↑ Wolfrum, Timothy R. (May 6, 2010). "State slams Manatee Palms psychiatric hospital". The Bradenton Herald. Archived from the original on November 13, 2013. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  47. ↑ "Manatee Palms Youth Services Facility Profile". FloridaHealthFinder.gov. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  48. ↑ Wang, Shan (January 23, 2017). "ProPublica is leading a nationwide effort to document hate crimes, with local and national partners". Nieman Lab. Archived from the original on August 5, 2017. Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  49. ↑ Stephen Montemayor (January 23, 2018). "Confusion, varying thresholds keep many Minnesota agencies from reporting hate crime data". StarTribune. Archived from the original on March 1, 2018. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  50. ↑ Wei, Sisi; Pierce, Olga; Allen, Marshall (July 15, 2015). "Surgeon Scorecard". ProPublica. Archived from the original on February 15, 2018. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  51. ↑ Friedberg M, Pronovost P, Shahian D, Safran D, Bilimoria K, Elliott M, Damberg C, Dimick J, Zaslavsky A (2015). "A Methodological Critique of the ProPublica Surgeon Scorecard". Rand Health Quarterly. RAND Corporation. 5 (4): 1. PMC 5158216. PMID 28083411. Archived from the original on February 15, 2018. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  52. ↑ Dougherty, Geoff; Harder, Ben (August 25, 2015). "The U.S. News Take on ProPublica's Surgeon Scorecard". US News. Archived from the original on March 1, 2018. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  53. ↑ Andrew Gelman (August 4, 2015). "Pro Publica's New Surgeon Scorecards". Archived from the original on March 1, 2018. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  54. ↑ Engelberg, Stephen; Pierce, Olga (October 7, 2015). "Our Rebuttal to RAND's Critique of Surgeon Scorecard". ProPublica. Archived from the original on February 28, 2018. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  55. ↑ Wei, Sisi; Groeger, Lena; Podkul, Cezary; Schwencke, Ken (December 15, 2016). "Tracking Evictions and Rent Stabilization in NYC". ProPublica. Archived from the original on March 1, 2018. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  56. ↑ "Tracking Evictions and Rent Stabilization in NYC". Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards. Archived from the original on August 17, 2018. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  57. ↑ Engelberg, Stephen; Tofel, Richard (June 8, 2021). "Why We Are Publishing the Tax Secrets of the .001%". ProPublica. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  58. ↑ Jenkins, Holman (June 15, 2021). "Your Stolen Tax Records Are News". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  59. ↑ Weisman, Jonathan; Rappeport, Alan (June 16, 2021). "An Exposé Has Congress Rethinking How to Tax the Superrich". The New York Times. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  60. ↑ Farivar, Cyrus (June 25, 2021). "Billionaire investor Peter Thiel has $5B in his tax-free retirement account, report finds". NBC News. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  61. ↑ Higgins, Tucker (June 9, 2021). "Attorney General Garland vows billionaire tax leak to ProPublica will be 'top of my list' to investigate". CNBC. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  62. ↑ "The Most Detailed Map of Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution in the U.S." ProPublica. November 2, 2021. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  63. ↑ Kofman, Lylla Younes,Al Shaw,Ava (November 2, 2021). "How We Created the Most Detailed Map Ever of Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution". ProPublica. Retrieved April 21, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  64. ↑ Zayas, Lisa Song,Alexandra (September 29, 2022). "New Air Monitors Among Major Impacts of ProPublica Toxic Air Pollution Reporting". ProPublica. Retrieved April 21, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  65. ↑ Holl, Blake; Goodwin, Jason (November 19, 2021). "Longview has 'hot spot' for cancer-causing air, according to ProPublica report". KLTV. Retrieved April 22, 2023.
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