Joseph Cranney
@joey_cranney
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Investigative reporter, The Times-Picayune | @LMattersNews founder | "My journalistic range is a catalyst for change." – @blackthought
New Orleans
Joined October 2010
By the end of 2025, research shows a third of U.S. local newspapers will be closed for good. Many remaining are broke and understaffed. But local newsrooms are still a vital force for good in communities across the country. Proof, just in the last year, of what we stand to lose:.
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U.S. local newspapers are dying at a rate of 2 per week. By 2025, a third of them will be gone. If you’re not convinced that’s a doomsday-level threat to democracy, read this state-by-state list of what local reporters uncovered in 2022. It’s a sample of what we stand to lose.
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Local journalism 2018 in review -- in every corner of the U.S. this year, local reporters went to work every day looking to expose wrongdoing in their communities. Here’s just some of what they found:.
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It’s easy to treat the media as a punching bag. But look to the nation’s local newsrooms. For little money or recognition, reporters in 2023 stood up to power brokers who tried to bully them into silence, exposed corrupt officials and even saved lives. Proof, from every state:.
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Local journalism of 2019 in review: Throughout the U.S. this year, local reporters aimed to expose wrongdoing in their communities. Here’s just some of what they found:.
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In Alabama, @JohnArchibald exposed a small town that transformed its one-man police department into a predatory force that ticketed motorists at astronomical rates. Last year, police made more misdemeanor arrests than the town has residents.
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Columbia, South Carolina: @CoachWMuschamp & @GamecockFB marching from downtown Columbia to the governor's mansion. Muschamp: "We're marching for racial equality."
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In Alaska, a special prosecutor charged the former acting attorney general with sexual abuse of a minor after @kylehopkinsAK first exposed the allegations.
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In California, @AleneTchek exposed a cover-up at the Los Angeles sheriff’s office over an incident in which a deputy knelt on the head of a handcuffed suspect for 3 minutes. The sheriff then targeted the reporter in a leak investigation.
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In Arizona, @TucsonStar obtained emails revealing that a university official had asked for an order of protection against a former student a month before the student shot a professor.
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In Arkansas, @NoelEOman reported that a senior executive of the Little Rock airport said he was fired after a top official told him to hire a white person for a job even though a Black candidate scored better.
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In Colorado, @ShellyBradbury pierced the veil of a cult that requires excessive corporal punishment, fails to protect children from sexual abuse, exploits members for labor and money and espouses racism, misogyny and homophobia.
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In Alabama, @ConnorASheets reported a sheriff pocketed about $750,000 slated for inmate food programs and bought beachfront property
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Welcome to the magistrate courts of South Carolina, where politicians stocked the bench with judges who aren't lawyers and who have less training than the state's barbers or masseuses. Scores of them misapplied the law or abused the bench.
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In Connecticut, lawmakers introduced legislation that would stop police departments from hiring officers who were fired for misconduct after @BillCummingsct uncovered cops accused of abuse who stayed in law enforcement.
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In Alabama, @aldotcom exposed a jail where staff were accused of depriving a mentally ill man of his false teeth — letting him starve for days — and dumping him naked in an isolation unit, where he froze to death.
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The nation’s local reporters deserve another standing ovation in 2020. A pandemic crippled the industry and shuttered newsrooms, yet every day these reporters set out to document outbreaks and other wrongdoing in communities across the U.S. Here’s just some of what they found:.
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In Florida, @NickNehamas exposed the death of an inmate who prison guards had tackled — paralyzing him — then left him to starve.
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In Florida, @Blaskey_S revealed that the Miami’s mayor’s net worth increased five-fold during his first term as he used his public office to court technology and real estate companies.
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In Alaska, police rarely criminally charge men accused of strangling women, despite the state’s public commitments, @kylehopkinsAK reported. Two women were found dead at an ex-mayor’s property; no one charged.
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In every corner of the U.S. this week local reporters exposed wrongdoing and toppled bad guys -- hidden child abuse, a sex trafficking cover-up, deadly doctors, cheating nonprofits and so much more. In today's Local Matters, a record 20 stories:
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In Georgia, @wmariano & @JohnEdwardsAJC reviewed thousands of code enforcement complaints and uncovered a system of lax oversight at rental properties that allows out-of-state landlords to put profits over the safety of their tenants.
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In Arizona, @TucsonStar found a church described as a cult by more than a dozen former members that is recruiting heavily on a college campus.
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In fact, the local paper @BrunsDailyNews wrote about Ahmaud's killing the day after it happened, and has published more than 40 follow-up articles.
The story has only blown up in recent days. What happened in the days and weeks immediately following the shooting?
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In Delaware, federal officials learned of the state’s non-compliance with a lead-testing program at schools after @mandy_fries began asking questions. Schools had to wait more than a year to receive testing results.
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In Illinois, @jsmithrichards & @Jodiscohen showed how a school for children with disabilities called the police on its students once every other day on average, a higher rate than any other school in the nation.
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In Hawaii, lawmakers proposed $600 million to fix a housing program for Native Hawaiians after @StarAdvertiser teamed with @propublica and revealed it was underfunded and failing to meet its promises.
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In Hawaii, top emergency officials were off island during Maui’s deadly wildfires and said they were caught by surprise by the blaze despite years of warnings from researchers, @CivilBeat reported.
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In Alaska, @kylehopkinsAK reported police departments flout requirements for training and background checks, regularly hiring criminals to protect and serve
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In Alabama, @ConnorASheets reported a sheriff pocketed $1.5 million in U.S. government funds that were supposed to be spent on food for federal inmates in a county jail
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In Mississippi, @ayewolfe uncovered and has led the coverage of the Brett Favre welfare scandal. She obtained texts proving that — despite denials — the governor aided Favre’s proposal to spend $8 million in welfare funds on a volleyball stadium.
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In Florida, @jkbjournalist reported prosecutors kneecapped a sprawling investigation into a New York power player's sex trafficking operation that had exploited underage girls for years
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In Kentucky, @courierjournal examined more than 140,000 cases to show how law enforcement used the state’s persistent-felony offender law mostly to punish people accused of the lowest-level felonies. Black people were 3½ times more likely to face charges.
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In Louisiana, @NOLAnews, @WWLTV & @propublica analyzed more than 90,000 grants revealing the state’s program to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina shortchanged the city’s poorest, mostly Black residents, while offering more to the wealthy.
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In Arizona, @charrisazrep reported the owner of a charter school, through a separate business, has made millions in publicly-funded land deals and contracts from the school .
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In California, in at least eight police shootings, Los Angeles police fired live ammunition at the same time as non-lethal bullets, killing five people, @kevrector & @brittny_mejia reported.
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In California, @daviddebolt & @mgafni obtained body camera footage showing law enforcement knew ahead of time about dangerous conditions in a warehouse where 36 people died
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In Arkansas, @josephtflaherty revealed a mayor’s cozy deal with a firm that was in line to get a contract from the municipal airport commission.
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In Idaho, @kfixler reported that corrections officials were shielding public records around acquiring drugs for planned executions, including the cost and who provided them.
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In Colorado, @DavidMigoya revealed a flaw in a special panel’s process for how they evaluate a judge’s performance before making recommendations to voters: The group doesn’t consider how often a judge’s decisions are reversed.
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In Iowa, @lathropd obtained statements from a former manager of a theme park where a boy was killed on a ride, who described a litany of safety hazards, including rides held together by duct tape.
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In Kansas, @byChanceSwaim & @Matt_Kelly22222 uncovered an officer’s fatal decision that diverted a teenager — who was having a mental health crisis — from a hospital to a juvenile lockup, where he died in custody.
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In Georgia, @ajc found investors who bought Atlanta homes in bulk, driving up prices, putting homeownership out of reach for many and disproportionately affecting Black communities.
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In Maine, @joelawlorph cracked the lid on the state’s bloated healthcare system, where patients’ bills are stuffed with arbitrary and hidden costs, while insurance companies deny claims without explanation.
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In Indiana, @Binghuihuang & @bykristinep revealed that worker safety officials ignored thousands of complaints during the pandemic, conducted fewer inspections than other states and bungled the few investigations it did carry out.
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In Illinois, a Chicago detective used questionable tactics to get a teenager to confess to a crime he did not commit, @ChipMitchell1 found after @WBEZ sued for video of the interrogation and had an expert analyze the footage.
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In Arizona, @justinJprice reported Phoenix police officers routinely purge their own files, erasing more than 600 acts of misconduct
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In Connecticut, school officials have restrained and secluded students thousands of times, causing dozens of injuries, @AlexPutterman reported. Black students were disproportionately subjected.
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In Kansas, police in a rural county raided the local newspaper's office and the publisher's home, a flagrant 1st Amendment violation. Stricken with stress, the paper's 98-year-old co-owner died the next day.
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In Delaware, a woman accused of begging in restaurants was jailed for a year before a judge released her, @Ber_Xerxes reported, more than 10 times longer than the maximum sentence for the original charges.
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In Nevada, authorities say reporter Jeff German was murdered by the government official he was investigating. His colleague @ByBrianaE continued his work, uncovering the official’s decade of allegations of harassment and other toxic behavior.
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In Alaska, @kylehopkinsAK reported one in three Alaska communities has no local law enforcement, including in regions with some of the country’s highest rates of poverty and sexual assault
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In Arkansas, @ArkansasOnline exposed a scheme by mental health executives who skirted controls to boost income and line their pockets, all at the cost of taxpayers.
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In Connecticut, @hartfordcourant reported small-town council members dined on lobster ravioli, filet mignon and a $49 Kobe beef and foie gras burger while discussing the upcoming year's budget
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In Nebraska, @yanqixu_revealed that state parole board members were skipping more than half of their hearings, blocking inmates’ chances of gaining early release.
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In Colorado, @DavidMigoya reported judges secretly shield records from thousands of cases, including violent crimes, keeping the pubic in the dark on criminal activity across the state
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In California, lax laws allow cops who commit crimes to stay on the beat. So a group of newsrooms scoured the state and found more than 80 officers working despite a criminal record
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The @postandcourier exposed scandalous South Carolina sheriffs. Voters paid attention, replacing disgraced lawmen or booting incumbents as part of a record wave of turnover.
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In New Jersey, the state wasn't tracking police use of force so @njdotcom filed more than 500 records requests and spent more than $30,000 to create a comprehensive database of every kick, punch and baton blow .
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In Michigan, jail officials emptied a juvenile facility of about 120 residents after @cmacfreep & @ReporterGina obtained complaints of teens being deprived of basic care, including daily showers, recreation time and medication.
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In Idaho, girls at a troubled teen facility reported being sexually assaulted, physically abused and harassed, but state officials never took disciplinary action, @Wilsoncriscione reported.
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In Massachusetts, @willsennott investigated companies linked to private equity firms that have forced out local anglers by taking advantage of lax antitrust laws to dominate the market and shifting costs onto crew-level employees.
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In Maryland, @lillyptweets reported on a police department that allowed a captain to retire with a pension amid an internal investigation that found he had a romantic interaction on duty with an 18-year-old employee and sexually harassed a subordinate.
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In Kentucky, a boy died after being publicly shamed, put in isolation and then placed in a deadly chokehold by officials who were supposed to care for him, @JasmineADemers reported.
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In Massachusetts, welfare officials diverted $15 million in federal benefits — meant for thousands of children with disabilities or those who’ve suffered the death of a parent — into the state’s coffers, @BostonGlobe reported.
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In Missouri, after a deadly high-speed collision, @KCStar analyzed state records and found at least 12 people recently died in crashes at railroad crossings that had been scheduled for repairs but were never completed.
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In New Jersey, @kaylacanne dug into one city’s mismanagement of a $2 million low-income home renovation program, which allowed landlords to hike rent on the city’s poorest residents after using tax dollars to improve properties.
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In Nebraska, a single county, population 17,000, accounts for a third of the state's civil asset forfeitures, @nataliaalamdari reported, where police often seize cash from motorists who never are charged with a crime.
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In Maine, railways are plagued by poorly maintained lines, unreported accidents and secrecy around the hazardous materials transported through the state, @_kayneufeld found after poring over thousands of pages of safety studies and inspections.
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In Indiana, students across the state are secluded and restrained thousands of times each year, @wfyi reported, despite laws meant to curb the practice.
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In Delaware, @ChristinaJedra reported at least a half-dozen people accused of nonviolent, minor crimes, including loitering, have been banned from a city as a condition of their release from jail .
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In Georgia, the Atlanta mayor reimbursed taxpayers almost $12,000 just days after reporters asked for his city-issued credit card bills
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The misconduct results from a system unlike any in the country, where politicians hand pick judges by themselves with no oversight. It's provided fertile ground for incompetence and corruption, a six-month @postandcourier/@propublica investigation found:
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In Maryland, The Archdiocese of Baltimore dismissed a celebrated reverend after @BaltimoreBanner revealed that he had paid $200,000 to quietly settle allegations of fraud and sexual assault.
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In Michigan, @BridgeMichigan revealed that the former house speaker secured a $6.8 million grant for dam repairs on a lake where one of his aides lives, even though 65 other lakes were in worse condition.
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In Montana, at least 4 patients died at a state hospital because of the facility’s noncompliance with federal rules, including an elderly woman who fell 13 times in less than 2 months before a final one killed her, @SeabornLarson reported.
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In Minnesota, the legislature voted to spend $30 million to improve care for those with mental health needs in the criminal justice system after @kare11 exposed that people were going without treatment.
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Another year, another amazing run by local reporters. Take this tour of the U.S. where these reporters, in states red and blue, set out every day to expose wrongdoing in the communities where they live and work. Here’s just some of their findings:.
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In Iowa, an insurance company that offered a lifeline to rural residents who were losing coverage has ties to a London businessman whose past raises questions of whether the company can actually pay claims, @LetsJett reported.
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In Florida, @romyellenbogen obtained video smuggled out of a prison revealing brawls, shanks, inmates on drugs and mold covering the walls of the kitchen
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In Louisiana, after officials dumped a group of juveniles at a former Death Row ward at Angola, teens there said they’ve been held in isolation for hours at a time, denied treatment and pepper sprayed, @jmderobertis & @rjamesfinn reported.
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In Nevada, taxpayers are footing the bill for Cadillacs, Audis, Teslas and other luxury vehicles for some of the area’s highest-paid govt. employees, who get to keep the cars when they leave office, @ArthurMKane reported.
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In Mississippi, @MSTODAYnews & @propublica revealed how the state jails hundreds of people, often the mentally ill, each year without charging them with a crime.
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In New Hampshire, @teddyrosenbluth examined a decade of police shootings and found more than 60% of those killed had a mental illness.
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In Hawaii, @HonAdv reported abusive parents pulled their daughter out of public school just seven months before starving her to death. Despite nine years of warning signs, neither the school nor child welfare officials intervened
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In Idaho, @IdahoStatesman reported a priest who had been accused of abuse in two other states used beer, cigars and money to bribe a 12-year-old to stay silent about sexual abuse. At least 10 church officials knew about the abuse but never called police
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In Pennsylvania, a dozen Philadelphia judges double as landlords and have failed to follow tax and building laws — the same rules they’re supposed to enforce — at their own rental properties, @PhillyInquirer reported.
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In Minnesota, child protection officials returned a 6-year-old boy to his mother even though she had lied to caseworkers, failed drug tests, committed crimes and stalked the boy’s foster parents, @kare11 reported. Ten days later, she murdered her son.
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In Colorado, @csgazette obtained video showing a black man who appeared to be unarmed and running away from police when officers shot him fatally in the back
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In Iowa, @JasonClayworth reported lewd sexual conduct runs rampant at the statehouse. Men watch porn at work and make sexist comments toward female lobbyists and lawmakers.
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In Arkansas, @EricBesson_news reported a top aide at an Arkansas crime lab has profited from more than $150,000 in contracts from the taxpayer-funded agency
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Now seems like a good time to spotlight some journalists whose local reporting helped overturn wrongful convictions, but whose work you may not be familiar with . .
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In New Jersey, after an industrial fire @northjersey investigated where dangerous chemicals are stored in the state and found hazards are often tucked near residences with seemingly little thought to the risk they bring.
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In New Hampshire, a casino owner and former state lawmaker came under federal investigation on charges that he and his wife used a federal pandemic loan to pay themselves rent and buy race cars, @annmarietimmins reported.
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In Louisiana, @theadvocatebr analyzed 3,000 felony cases to show a racially biased court system disproportionately convicts black defendants without unanimous verdicts
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In New Mexico, after the U.S. Forest Service set fires that destroyed 430 homes, federal officials acted so slowly that only a small percentage of people have been able to move into temporary housing, @PatLohmann reported.
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In Illinois, @gapawlaczyk & @bhundsdorfer reported a township leader diverted $300,000 from a state youth program, instead funneling the teens into government-funded jobs at his private construction company.
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In Montana, a state university came under federal investigation after failing to “respond appropriately” to threats, including a death threat, received by the Queer Straight Alliance, @KeilaSzpaller reported.
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In Connecticut, @JNCWriter & @Kelan_Lyons pressed officials who shielded records on the year-old case of an inmate who gave birth on a toilet in her locked cell
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In Kentucky, @adwolfson analyzed more than 130,000 traffic stops and found black motorists were disproportionately stopped and searched
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