InvestigateWest: 2023-24

INVESTIGATEWEST Exposing truth. Sparking change.

Moriah Hughes sued Jehovah’s Witnesses for failing to protect her as a child.

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WELCOME

THE VALUE OF JOURNALISM

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hat happens when no one is watching?

It sounds theoretical, but it’s not. We know the answer. Things go very, very badly indeed. Research has pegged the decline of local reporting to higher rates of public corruption, polarization and voter apathy. Democracy needs a watchdog press.

But it’s so much more than that. The air we breathe, the water we drink — yes, one study found that polluters’ toxic emissions declined 29 percent when newspapers reported on pollution, compared with plants that were not covered.

Do we want good schools? Safe streets?

Good government? Justice? Equity? Do we want wrongdoing rooted out and powerful interests held accountable?

We need a watchdog press. We need InvestigateWest.

From the beginning, the organization has had one mission: to produce revelatory investigative reporting that could shape public policy, hold power accountable and create real-world change across the Pacific Northwest.

That formula has enabled the small newsroom to generate massive impact.

InvestigateWest’s reporting has directly resulted in nine new state laws in Washington and helped push forward another law in Oregon.

We’re continuing to build on that track record of impact, with an emphasis on vulnerable communities, social justice, equity, climate and the environment, and democracy.

Flip through the following pages, and you’ll see what happens when InvestigateWest is watching.

— JACOB H. FRIES InvestigateWest’s executive director

OUR HISTORY

InvestigateWest was founded in 2009 by Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporters and editors after the paper stopped publishing. The organization was part of a pioneering group of news outlets created at that time to preserve public-service journalism through a nonprofit model relying on reader support and donations rather than advertising. For details on how you can get involved, see page 15.

COVER PHOTO BY ERICK DOXEY | FIND US ONLINE AT INVW.ORG.  A firefighter watches a prescribed burn as it approaches a forest road that will be used to contain a fire in Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest near Liberty, Wash., in May 2019. (Dan DeLong photo)

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DEMOCRACY

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VOTING

As an organization, we take the business of democracy very seriously. InvestigateWest has led the way in exposing how Washington state continues to disproportionately reject the ballots of younger voters and voters of color. Our reporting has sparked lawsuits against the state, including one filed by the UCLA Voting Rights Project and another one by a leading elections attorney.

In September, we also examined the drive for and against ranked choice voting in a story headlined “The Idaho GOP fears ranked-choice voting could turn Idaho blue.” We expect this coverage will be critical in the coming 2024 election cycle. Maria McHone, election board worker coordinator, looks through boxes for ballot return envelopes at the Marion County Clerk’s Office. (Amanda Loman photo).

ABOVE: Marissa Reyes’ signature on her ballot was challenged in August 2020 after she left her hometown of Prosser in Benton County to return to New York, where she had been in college. (Dan DeLong photo)

DEDICATED TO DEMOCRACY

Daniel Walters, an investigative reporter who’s made a career out of exposing con artists, conspiracy theorists, vigilantes, preppers, racists and bad-behaving public officials, joined InvestigateWest in July to cover democracy and extremism across the Pacific Northwest.

Previously, Walters spent 15 years at The Inlander, a weekly paper based in Spokane, where he had covered many of the Northwest’s leading far-right figures and produced groundbreaking reporting on patriot and white nationalist groups.

His byline has appeared in news outlets across the country, including The New York Times, and in 2020, The Washington Post profiled Walters’ work under the headline: “A Washington lawmaker shared conspiracy theories. She threatened a reporter who wrote about it.”

Walters joined InvestigateWest through a partnership with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.

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YOUTH 6 INVESTIGATEWEST

RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES In recent years, the troubled teen industry has come under intense scrutiny.

Abuse and deaths of children have plagued these facilities, and a number of states have boosted regulations and shut programs down. Idaho has been reluctant to follow suit, and yet as state regulators have stood by, children have repeatedly found themselves in harm’s way.

Our initial investigation, published in October 2023, focused on a particular facility in Post Falls, Idaho, where employees had alerted state officials to the dangers, only to be fired themselves.

The headline: “Rape, beatings and racial slurs: None of it was enough to shut down this Idaho youth facility.”

This reporting effort continues — watch for future stories this winter. Emily Carter, along with four colleagues, sent an 84-page complaint to Idaho state regulators detailing horrors against children at Cornerstone Cottage. (Leah Nash photo) Find us online at invw.org.

FOSTER CARE

From its earliest days, InvestigateWest has concerned itself with the welfare of children across the region. Our coverage of Washington’s foster care system has been particularly impactful. After our reporters exposed the crisis inside the state system, the Legislature passed six laws to help foster kids and foster parents and allocated $48 million in new funding.

Former state Rep. Ruth Kagi said InvestigateWest’s reporting made it all possible: “Your reporting really made people aware of the problems, and created a sense of urgency. Those articles — it was amazing — the whole issue came into its own because of the reporting you did.” It’s an issue that we continue to cover aggressively, including a story in August: “WA foster parents say the state still hasn’t fixed overly punitive investigations driving them out of foster care.”

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JUSTICE

PRISONS

Oregon had the unique distinction of being one of only two states (Louisiana being the other) that had ever allowed people to be convicted by a divided jury — where at least one believed the person to be innocent.

In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court declared split-jury verdicts unconstitutional, but left it up to both states to figure out what to do with the hundreds of people already in prison for such convictions.

Oregon had yet to act in October 2022 when we published, in partnership with The Washington Post, our investigation: “At least one juror refused to call them guilty. But they’re still in prison.” About two months later, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that all people convicted by a split jury had the right to appeal those convictions, clearing the way for several hundred incarcerated people to have their cases retried.

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ABOVE: Aliza Kaplan, a criminal defense attorney, has been advocating on behalf of prisoners languishing in Oregon prisons for years after their convictions were ruled unconstitutional.

(Leah Nash photo)

SEXUAL ABUSE

Our exclusive investigation last fall exposed how Jehovah’s Witnesses had covered up sexual abuse in Washington state for decades.

Notably, the state’s laws pertaining to reporting child abuse — one of the weakest in the country when it comes to clergy — had made it easier for these allegations to stay hidden.

Our first story — headlined “Jehovah’s Witnesses covered up child sexual abuse in Washington state for decades, lawsuit alleges” — was soon followed by others, as lawmakers looked to close Washington’s loopholes. In February, before the state Senate approved the legislation, Sen. Noel Frame stood and said this: “This legislation, I want to acknowledge, is a direct result of incredible investigative reporting

by InvestigateWest that uncovered decades of child abuse being covered up by a particular faith community in Washington state.” The legislation stalled in the House, but Frame hopes to pass it in the coming year.

(Al Jazeera is also filming a short documentary this fall, based on our reporting.) For Moriah Hughes, justice came at a personal cost. As the criminal case against the man who raped her developed, Hughes’ relationship with her family was shattered. (Erick Doxey photo) Find us online at invw.org.

OUR REACH

InvestigateWest’s articles are regularly republished in dozens of local outlets across Washington, Oregon and Idaho. We also partner with national publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Grist, The Guardian and The Atlantic.

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ENVIRONMENT

MINING POLLUTION

Typically, InvestigateWest doesn’t cover issues in Montana, but this wasn’t a typical story. We had received a tip about unreported health hazards created by a massive and active open-pit copper and molybdenum mine in Butte. This wasn’t a rehash of the toxic legacy of Butte’s historical mining, but an urgent examination of the dangers posed by ongoing operations.

We published our investigation earlier this year under the headline, “In a battle for truth in a small Montana mining town, newly revealed records show how the EPA sided with polluters.” In it, we reveal the cozy relationship between EPA officials and the mining companies in Butte. Indeed, we reviewed thousands of pages of documents detailing how the EPA coordinated with the very companies they’re supposed to be regulating to attack researchers who had raised alarms over current mining practices. The project led to immediate action from both the EPA and the mining company promising renewed transparency and increased funding to study the health impacts of the mine.

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ABOVE: Mark Thompson, the vice president of environmental affairs for Montana Resources, operator of the active mine in Butte. (Erick Doxey photo)

CRYPTOCURRENCY

When we considered investigating the environmental impacts of crypto, this startling fact stood out: According to one study, the cryptocurrency bitcoin had vacuumed up enough power to erase all the energy savings from electric cars. And so began our journey.

We produced a series of stories examining the electricity-eating monster that is cryptocurrency through 2022 and in 2023. The project explored how and why the industry has gravitated to the Northwest, the impact it’s having on the region’s sustainability and climate-resiliency efforts and, looking ahead, what it could spell for the people of the region and beyond. Among the stories we published: “Why PNW officials are only now deciding how to regulate crypto mining,” “Can crypto mining go green? Critics are skeptical” and “WA passes climate goals for crypto and data centers while OR’s effort fails.” This series was supported in part by a grant from the Sustainable Path Foundation.

BELOW: The interior of the liquid-cooled Ant Boxes at the Merkle Standard cryptocurrency mining facility in Usk, Wash., in 2022.

(Erick Doxey photo)

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EQUITY

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HOMELESSNESS

At the end of last year, we published a longform narrative about a disturbing American phenomenon: the fact that a certain segment of people are so desperate they're committing petty crimes — or even robbing banks — so that they'll be sent to jail. Of course, these were somewhat exceptional cases, but with homelessness exploding, especially along the West Coast, it's occurring with greater frequency. And with cities grappling with how to help unhoused people, this particular population of street-hardened people presents unique policy and political challenges for communities around the country. It’s not just happening in places like Seattle and San Francisco.

It’s now an issue confronting small and midsized cities like Spokane, Washington, a place that had long been marketed — until recently — as an affordable city to raise a family. That’s no longer the case. Housing prices have skyrocketed, and the community is divided over how to manage the sudden appearance of unhoused people occupying corners of its small, revitalized downtown.

The story — “‘I kept reoffending’: Why unhoused people are choosing to go to jail” — follows Chris Carver’s quixotic journey from the streets to jail and includes analysis of potential reforms and the respective costs of jailing vs. housing. It was co-published by The Guardian. Chris Carver boasts that he is the “second-longesthomeless man in Spokane.” (Erick Doxey photos) Find us online at invw.org.

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HOW TO HELP

WHAT YOU CAN DO

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e depend on reader support, and your donation to InvestigateWest enables our reporters to continue their essential work — keeping a close eye on powerful interests,

ONLINE To donate securely online, visit invw.org/donate or scan this QR code now.

QUESTIONS?

Executive Director Jacob Fries can be reached by email at jacob@invw.org and by phone at (509) 251-4500.

schools, police, polluters, our kids, society’s safety nets and those falling through them.

We can’t do this without you. Your contribution directly funds our reporters, their notebooks, their laptops, their search for the truth.

BY MAIL We also happily accept checks, payable to InvestigateWest.

Our mailing address is: PO Box 9574, Seattle, WA 98109.

TAX INFO

InvestigateWest is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, and your gifts are tax deductible to the full extent provided by law. Our tax ID is 27-0170663.

INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT

The following foundations have given generously to InvestigateWest: Arnold Ventures, Reva & David Logan Foundation, Inasmuch Foundation, The Bullitt Foundation, Fund for Investigative Journalism, Inatai Foundation, Martin-Fabert Foundation, The Miami Foundation, Seattle Foundation, Sustainable Path Foundation and Google News Initiative. For a list of individual donors, visit invw.org/donors.

INDEPENDENCE: InvestigateWest’s financial supporters have no hand in editorial decisions.

 Maya Ewings, a busy mom of two active boys in Tacoma, was featured in our "Child Care in Crisis" series in 2021.

(Dan DeLong photo)

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INVESTIGATEWEST PO Box 9574, Seattle, WA 98109 Find us online at invw.org

“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”

— IDA B. WELLS

The Wild Horse wind and solar farm east of Ellensburg, Washington, generates electricity for Puget Sound Energy. (Dan DeLong photo) 16 INVESTIGATEWEST