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The Utah Investigative Journalism Project
Free webinar on following the 2024 legislative session & campaign finances
Learn how to track campaign spending and donations and follow the 2024 legislative session by attending our free webinar on Jan. 10, 2024, 12-1 pm. The 2024 legislature is just around the corner. It’s 45 furious days of sausage-grinding from full days of committee hearings to backroom deals and last minute bills. This year why not get prepared early?
Rep. Burgess Owens’ campaign has paid his daughter more than $150,000
The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with KUER. Congressman Burgess Owens’ congressional biography page lists “faith, family, free markets and education” as his guiding principles. But family is more than just a campaign platform for the 4th District representative. Since he first ran for office in 2020, he has paid over $150,000 in campaign funds to his daughter Summur Berrett for campaign work.
How a former Soviet republic at war found a friend at the Utah Legislature with help from essential oils
The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and The Salt Lake Tribune. An innocent legislative proclamation saluting the government of a former Soviet republic — combined with an official visit from a foreign delegation to Utah’s...
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Double your donation and double your investment in investigative journalism that gives voice to the voiceless!. Hello supporters! We are excited to announce that we have been selected to take part in NewsMatch 2023!. Starting now—through December 31— NewsMatch will match your new monthly donation 12 times or double your...
Police departments in Salt Lake County spent almost $20 million on civil rights complaints in the past decade
The following was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project and Axios Salt Lake City, in partnership with Salt Lake City Weekly. Adrian Govan had just stepped out of his grandmother’s house on Memorial Day 2015, when he saw the Salt Lake City Police patrol car cruise past and double back toward him.
Women decry harassment and toxic culture at St. George auto dealership
The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Salt Lake City Weekly. Charity Ann’s nearly decadelong work at the Stephen Wade Auto Center in St. George ended in tears. When she’d been hired there in 2014 as a receptionist, it started with jokes—though...
Do the Inland Port’s freight rail ambitions square with UDOT’s plan to expand I-15?
The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with KUER. Back in May, Utah Inland Port director Ben Hart told KUER the future of shipping has to change. “Utah is going to grow and grow and grow,” Hart said. “You can’t spend and build your...
Will Utah do anything to help struggling renters now that emergency federal money has dried up?
The following article was funded with support from The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. Utah spent more than $200 million in Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) provided by Congress in 2020. But the state closed down...
A plan to protect Utah from US Magnesium’s toxic waste relies on something that is disappearing
The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune, with support from the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Add another potential disaster to the growing list associated with the shrinking Great Salt...
‘Solar boom’ heats up fraud complaints against Utah solar companies
The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with the Deseret News. Several Utah-based solar companies and executives were accused of “deceptive and fraudulent” business practices in Minnesota in spring 2022, and while their Minnesota operations have ended, others are still in business across the country.
Who killed Doug Coleman? Mystery of gay man killed in 1978 still lingers.
By Eric S. Peterson, Megan Quiggle, Will Weber, Jacob Freeman, Andrew Luras, Gaetano Chiarenza, Whit Fuller, Miken McGill, Sorina Trauntvein, Alejandro Lucero, Rhenick Edwards and Reede Nasser. The following story was developed by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project and the University of Utah’s “Cold Case” class investigating unsolved murders in...
The Inland Port wants to be Utah’s magnet for tech jobs and electrification
The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with KUER. The Utah Inland Port Authority believes technology will be a big part of the future of shipping in the state. The Port wants to attract high-tech jobs and also make green tech investments like electric vehicle charging stations they say will keep the port clean and green.
Utah Inland Port now says it will be lean and green. Experts are skeptical
The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with KUER. The Utah Inland Port as it was imagined five years ago has come to a standstill. In 2018, planners envisioned a 16,000-acre logistics oasis in the marshy scrubland northwest of Salt Lake City. Instead of...
Ogden working to address toxic plume blocking Capitol Square development
The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with the Standard-Examiner. A once-bustling block in the heart of central Ogden now sits nearly vacant, awaiting launch of an ambitious redevelopment project. The proposed Capitol Square development can’t go forward until the city addresses an underground...
Whistleblower complaint accuses major Utah lending company of cutting corners during hot housing market
The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Salt Lake City Weekly. As Utah’s real estate market sizzled during the COVID pandemic, Matthew Borsodi, a compliance officer at one of Utah’s largest mortgage lenders, filed a federal complaint alleging that his former employer skirted rules aimed at protecting consumers from a repeat of the 2008 housing crisis.
Renter says she was forced to pay a legal bill to get federal rent assistance
The following story was funded with support from The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. When Ivey O’Neill moved into the Garden Lofts apartments, everything seemed perfect. Right in downtown Salt Lake City, it was close...
Bill would raise major barriers to sue for asbestos injuries in Utah
The following was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. In a Feb. 15 committee hearing, Rep. Brady Brammer, R-Pleasant Grove, said HB328 was a common-sense approach to making sure asbestos lawsuits only truly target the guilty. The bill, Asbestos Litigation Amendments would require medical proof an individual had been sickened by exposure before a lawsuit could officially be filed.
Utah set aside $10M for homelessness. Instead of services, cities tapped it for police
The following story was funded by The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with KUER, the Salt Lake City Weekly, The Standard-Examiner and The Spectrum News. It’s an early January afternoon and behind the Rio Grande Depot in Salt Lake City, several...
Inmate challenges state law he says was meant as retaliation against whistleblowers
The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. Utah law SB 242, passed in 2017, put a stop to the work of Reginald Williams. Williams, an inmate in the state prison, was known for filing dozens of Government Records Access and Management Act requests, or GRAMAs, every year. The behind-the-bars gadfly often sought information not about his own case but about the inner workings of the Utah Department of Corrections.
Worker shortage puts Utah’s prison in ‘crisis’
The following story was reported and written by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. Utah’s $1.04 billion new prison was supposed to be the start of a revolution in how the state deals with incarcerated felons — with a laserlike focus on safety and rehabilitation. Instead, it’s being run with a bare-bones staff in crisis mode.
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The Utah Investigative Journalism Project was founded in 2016 as a non-profit, public service journalism and educational resource for the state and region.
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