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For the Record: How to research political candidate’s background ahead of the 2024 election
Once a standard practice for most newsrooms covering their elected officials, “backgrounding” and fact-checking political candidates has, in many ways, become a lost art. For our new elections project with the nonprofit research organization, Sunlight Search, MuckRock is providing tips and ideas on how to thoroughly investigate political candidates during the 2024 election cycle. Part of this research includes submitting records requests to state and federal agencies, pulling basic property and business records and obtaining and analyzing personal financial disclosure reports.
Release Notes: Table Extraction Add-Ons, FOIA Log Explorer and DocumentCloud Search Improvements
We’ve launched several improvements over the last two weeks, including a few new DocumentCloud Add-Ons to help you extract tables from your documents and boosted DocumentCloud search stability. MuckRock’s FOIA Log Explorer now has agency cards, which provide you with more detail about each agency’s logs. MuckRock.
How a Brazilian newsroom created a digital archive of the Jan. 8 coup
On January 8, 2023, a group of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsanaro ransacked federal buildings in the capital city of Brasília, including the Supreme Federal Court, with the intention to overthrow the newly-elected government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The failed coup attempt, which was...
Missouri House bill would allow further testing for St. Louis radioactive waste
Local governments in the St. Louis area could request radioactive waste testing from the state under a Missouri House bill that would appropriate money to a long-unfunded program. The Missouri House Conservation and Natural Resources Committee on Monday heard testimony on a bill that would transfer $300,000 to a radioactive...
For the Record: Mudrock or MuckRock?
MuckRock and Cicero Independiente’s latest investigation was released on Tuesday, focusing on the Koppers coal tar plant located between the village of Stickney and the town of Cicero, and its history of violations with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. During our investigation, the town of Cicero’s longtime spokesperson, Ray...
Koppers disputes most recent environmental violations but plant records reveal two decades of run-ins with Illinois EPA
Over the past decade, the Koppers coal tar plant, situated on the border of the town of Cicero and the village of Stickney, has been flagged for more than 50 violations of state environmental laws. The plant emits more of two cancer-linked chemicals than any other facility in Cook County, and ranks among the biggest regulated air polluters in the U.S. Last fall, when the company received its latest violation notice from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Koppers followed the same routine it had many times before:
Release Notes: How to make self-hosted maps that work everywhere and cost next to nothing
For at least a decade now, I’ve told journalists building interactive maps two things:. You should create maps with a style that fits the story you’re telling and matches your newsroom’s broader design sensibilities. You should use a hosted service to do this. Hosting a full map...
Six things to know about Mazi Pilip and Tom Suozzi, the candidates who want to replace former Rep. George Santos
The special election to fill the congressional seat of disgraced and expelled former U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is on Tuesday, with New York state legislator and “rising star” Mazi Melesa Pilip, an Ethiopian-born Israeli émigré, competing against an establishment Democrat, former U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi.
Two years after admitting he ‘doesn’t do COVID deaths,’ Missouri coroner charged with lying on death certificates
The coroner of Cape Girardeau County, Missouri — who admitted to journalists in 2021 that his office simply “doesn’t do COVID deaths” and that he didn’t personally investigate deaths himself, despite being legally required to do so — was charged Thursday with stealing from a dead person and lying on multiple death certificates.
The Association of Appin Training Centers is waging a global censorship campaign to stop you from reading these documents
Founded in 2003, Appin has been described as a cybersecurity company and an educational consulting firm. Appin was also, according to Reuters reporting and extensive marketing materials, a prolific “hacking for hire” service, stealing information from politicians and militaries as well as businesses and even unfaithful spouses. Legal...
For the Record: How to analyze a nearly 500-line handwritten personal financial disclosure report
This year, MuckRock has launched a new election project with the nonpartisan research organization Sunlight Search to investigate and provide a full background on candidates running for office in 2024. Our latest story, “How MuckRock found the backstory of a mystery congressional candidate in Southern California through public records,” uncovered California Republican congressional candidate Margarita Wilkinson’s previously-unreported background through public records.
Release Notes: Better site monitoring, revision control enhancements and more
MuckRock’s tech team has been hard at work enhancing our transparency platforms, all of which are open source. Notable updates include improved revision control, a range of new and upgraded Add-Ons and some experiments with an open-source, self-hosted map stack. DocumentCloud updates. We recently launched revision control in DocumentCloud...
How MuckRock found the backstory of a mystery congressional candidate in Southern California through public records
Margarita Wilkinson has very little name recognition to southern California voters after a decades-long career as a manager and executive at Spanish language television stations in New Mexico and San Diego but she’s waging a surprisingly formidable campaign as a Republican challenger for the 49th congressional district, currently held by incumbent Democratic Rep. Mike Levin, now in his second term.
L-AI Bot, a chatbot that hones Brazilian information requests before they’re filed
When someone sends a records request, one of the biggest questions is whether it will be completed. Many records laws around the world give agencies at least a month to respond, and no one wants to waste time asking for information that will be denied. How do we better gauge...
U.S. senators call for better oversight of federal health agency following criticism of Long Covid program
This article is republished from The Sick Times. Read The Sick Times’ story and live coverage of the Senate hearing. Several U.S. senators called for better oversight of the National Institutes of Health, pointing to criticism of the agency’s RECOVER initiative — the largest recipient of federal Long Covid funding so far.
‘The Lost Promise of Refuge Ranch:’ How Christian activists in Texas failed the sex-trafficking survivors they sought to help
In 2013, a wealthy tech executive donated a 50-acre parcel of land near a loblolly pine forest called the Lost Pines in Central Texas. Brooke Crowder, a self-described Christian sex trafficking abolitionist, promised to use it to “fulfill the call of my life.”. For Crowder, a mother of four...
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