Inside the Newsroom

Since 1977, CIR has been on the forefront of nonprofit investigative reporting, telling thousands of stories on all platforms and through prominent outlets, reaching millions.

Over the years, these stories have sparked federal legislation, policy at all levels of government, United Nations resolutions, public interest lawsuits and changes in corporate practices.

Here are a few examples from the past year:

A Senate committee launches a probe after a CIR investigation found that the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis has done little to improve the nation’s intelligence data.

A police chief resigns amid an FBI investigation and murderers are convicted following dogged reporting by The Chauncey Bailey Project, a collaboration of dozens of news organizations, including CIR, into the murder of Oakland Post editor Bailey by a corrupt group about which he was reporting.

California Gov. Jerry Brown signs two new bills following California Watch stories. One prevents unfair seizures of vehicles from immigrants, and the other removes lead-tainted products – many marketed to children – from store shelves.

A grand jury is convened following reporting by Stanley Nelson of the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, La., that identified a leading suspect in the unsolved 1964 murder of Frank Morris. Nelson is part of The Civil Rights Cold Case Project, a collaboration of award-winning journalists, documentary filmmakers, civil rights attorneys, universities and others working together to seek truth; create conditions for justice; and foster reconciliation connected with hundreds of unsolved, racially motivated murders from the Civil Rights era.

Bureaucratic shakeup, rule changes and two separate internal investigations at the California state architect’s office, plus the release of $200 million in bond funds for seismic safety of K-12 schools, follow a California Watch investigation that revealed the failure to fully enforce the state’s landmark earthquake safety law for public schools.

The U.S. State Department requests copies of “The Price of Sex,” the documentary film about international sex trafficking, to use for training at the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and in embassies around the world.

New laws and penalties are put in place for nursing homes after California Watch revealed that hundreds of homes took money from a taxpayer fund intended to hire staff and boost wages in the name of quality care, but actually cut staff and reduced wages.

The superintendent of public instruction in California calls for an immediate review of school textbooks and a community group gathers 20,000 signatures in opposition to a curriculum after our environmental reporter discovered that the American Chemistry Council directly provided textbook passages that downplayed the environmental risks of plastic grocery bags.

The state Department of Real Estate launches an investigation after we reported about a Southern California housekeeper who was scammed by an unlicensed mortgage lender. At least one reader was so moved by the housekeeper’s story that he donated money directly to her.

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