InvestigateWest: 2022-23

INVESTIGATEWEST Change-making investigative journalism for the Pacific Northwest

Elaine Harvey, a member of the Yakama’s Kah-milt-pa, standing before a row of the more than 2,900 industrial-scale wind turbines lining the Columbia River Gorge.

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WELCOME

WHY JOURNALISM MATTERS

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uane Statler had lost all hope when I met him. I sat with him for hours on that first visit, going through stacks of court records he’d neatly arranged on his kitchen table.

Just look, Duane told me, “There’s enough evidence right here, in black and white, to send our boys home.” None of it had mattered.

Duane’s 21-year-old son, Paul, had been sentenced to 41 years in prison, convicted with two friends of robbing drug dealers.

It didn’t matter that there was no physical evidence; they were found guilty solely on the word of a jailhouse informant who got an exceptionally light sentence in exchange for testifying. It didn’t matter that on the first day of their trial, prosecutors switched the date of the alleged crime, wiping out the men’s alibis in the process. (A judge fined the prosecutors $8,000, but let the trial proceed anyway, saying, “I am sanctioning the state for what I consider to be … a careless handling of these cases.”) It didn’t even matter when a friend of the informant wrote to Duane to confess, saying that he and the informant had conspired to pin the crimes on Paul and the other innocent men. None of it

had mattered.

Then I published my investigation: “Reasonable Doubt: How spotty detective work and careless prosecution may have put the wrong men behind bars.” Duane made copies of the article and mailed them to lawmakers in Olympia. One took an interest and crafted a bill requiring that an informant’s testimony be corroborated by some other evidence.

The article soon reached lawyers at the Washington Innocence Project, then housed at the University of Washington, and they took up the case. Finally, after the young men spent four years in prison, the case was dropped, and they were free to go home.

The story mattered.

Investigative journalism matters.

It stands up for truth and justice. It holds power accountable. It fights misinformation, conspiracies, extremism, the apathy of dysfunctional systems.

It was Thomas Jefferson who famously remarked, “The only security of all is in a free press.” That idea is at the center of InvestigateWest — that our mission is not to serve any party, but to produce public-service journalism that helps make the world a more just and equitable place. For Paul Statler.

For everyone. For you.

— JACOB FRIES InvestigateWest’s executive director

OUR REACH InvestigateWest’s articles are regularly republished in local outlets across the Northwest. We also partner with national outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Grist and The Guardian.

COVER PHOTO

BY LEAH NASH  FACING PAGE: Meseret Haile displays a photo of her son Leoul at her apartment in Bellevue. Leoul, who has special needs, is in a facility in Kansas because Washington doesn’t have adequate facilities. (Dan DeLong photo)

OUR MISSION

Our mission is to engage Pacific Northwest residents in social issues by providing compelling, change-making investigative and explanatory journalism.

WHAT WE DO

OUR IMPACT

OUR TEAM

HOW TO HELP

Simply put: change-making investigative journalism for the Pacific Northwest. 4

Because of our reporting, laws have been changed and wrongs have been righted. 6

InvestigateWest is growing, thanks to help from our generous supporters. 10

We can’t do this without you.

Your contribution directly funds our reporters. 14 INVESTIGATEWEST 3

THE NEED Tens of thousands of reporters have lost their jobs since 2008.

Meanwhile, American democracy is under siege, threatened by misinformation, conspiracy theories, Big Tech, tribalism and the like. It’s not a coincidence that this is happening while newsrooms are laying off staff.

Find us online at invw.org. Hundreds of "kayaktivists" amassed in Seattle's Elliott Bay to oppose plans to transport this Shell Oil drilling rig bound for the Arctic. (Joshua Trujillo photo) Jessica Heavner with her children at their home in Federal Way. Heavner had worried that her new job as an accounting technician could make her ineligible for reduced child care costs.

(Dan DeLong photo)

OUR WORK

WHAT WE DO

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nvestigateWest is dedicated to producing change-making journalism for the Pacific Northwest. Our journalists work tirelessly to expose corruption, wrongdoing, abuses of power and society’s broken systems. We focus on the most urgent issues of our time — climate and the environment, social justice, vulnerable people, threats to democracy.

Our investigative stories aim for real-world impact. Over the years, our reporting has sparked policy reforms, lawsuits holding corporations and government agencies accountable, and nine state laws protecting the environment, workers and foster children. Our vision is a society of informed residents empowered to exercise their rights and work within their communities to make the world a more just and equitable place.

OUR AWARDS InvestigateWest has won more than 75 journalism awards and honors since we began publishing in 2010.

QUOTABLE

Robert McClure 4 INVESTIGATEWEST

“As one of InvestigateWest’s co-founders, I’m proud to see the organization doing in-depth reporting that has the power to shape public policy and corporate practice. InvestigateWest continues to produce journalism for the common good, and we are all the better for it.”

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FOCUS AREAS Looking ahead, our reporters are focused on a handful of coverage areas: 1. Climate and the environment; 2.

Democracy and disinformation; 3.

Youth and education; 4. Race and equity; 5. Crime and punishment; 6. Housing and society’s safety nets.

Find us online at invw.org. Melissa Malott, executive director of Communities for a Healthy Bay, on Commencement Bay in Tacoma. (Dan DeLong photo)

OUR IMPACT

GETTING THINGS DONE

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s a nonprofit, InvestigateWest measures success differently than other media — not in advertising or clicks or trends on Twitter, but in real-world change. To date, InvestigateWest’s reporting has resulted in nine new laws in Washington to protect workers, the environment and foster kids, and helped push forward a new law in Oregon intended to promote justice for people of color.

InvestigateWest’s reporting has been cited in national congressional investigations and in lawsuits against state and local agencies, including one filed

by UCLA’s Voting Rights Project after our reporting exposed discrimination against Latino voters.

Meanwhile, our “Driving While Indian” project exposed how the state patrol searched cars of people of color at disproportionate rates, prompting state action, an academic study and reforms.

Here are a few other examples of InvestigateWest getting things done:

HEALTH HAZARDS

Following an InvestigateWest investigation into the health hazards faced by health care workers who 6 INVESTIGATEWEST

handle chemotherapy drugs, the state of Washington passed two new laws, creating an occupational cancer registry and mandating regulations governing how toxic drugs are handled in the workplace.

SEXUAL ASSAULT AT REED COLLEGE

Our stories dissecting Reed College’s failed system for bringing sexual-assault predators to justice led to the end of its once-secret system of prosecuting sexual assaults through a college Honor Code system.

TOXIC ASPHALT

Washington became the first state in the nation to ban toxic asphalt sealants — made from cancer-causing industrial waste — that have been spread over vast swaths of the nation’s cities and suburbs after InvestigateWest published the first indepth national reporting on the material.

FOSTER CARE

After InvestigateWest’s reporting laid bare a crisis of historic proportions in Washington’s child-welfare system, the Washington Legislature passed six laws to help foster kids and foster parents, and $48 million in new funding.

AUDIENCE Our journalism is reaching more people than ever, with a dozen outlets regularly redistributing our stories.

Traffic to our website (invw.org) was up 111 percent in August 2022 over the previous August. In 2022, we more than doubled the number of subscribers to our weekly newsletter.

NOTABLE WORKS

THE STORIES WE TELL

InvestigateWest is building on its track record of change-making journalism with a number of new projects. We’ve been doing groundbreaking reporting about the treatment of disabled students, disparities in the justice system and the economic obstacles facing rural Indigenous communities. Our articles are now reaching more people than ever and, relatedly, have had greater impact on public policy and the community’s understanding of issues critical to the Pacific Northwest. Here are a few examples.

EDUCATION An investigation in 2022 exposed how Washington state was shipping more disabled students out of state, splitting up families and costing taxpayers millions. Directly as a result of our reporting, state lawmakers called for a special summer session to figure out how to end this practice.

ENVIRONMENT Our yearlong series called “Getting to Zero: Decarbonizing Cascadia” won first prize in SPJ’s Pacific Northwest Excellence in Journalism Contest for collaboration in 2022. Stories from the series also won first prize for environment and natural resources reporting. The impact of the project is still being felt as advocates and policy-makers continue to point to our central findings definitively documenting how politicians came up short on ambitious promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE An investigation revealed how where you live in Washington may determine whether you get stuck in jail before trial. The initial article in our "Justice by Geography" series ran in nearly 10 news outlets across the state, and one community has already embraced reforms after our reporting.

CHILD CARE Our project examining cracks in the child care system continues to pay dividends in terms of public understanding and policy initiatives. In 2022, parents we profiled in our “Child Care in Crisis” series were flown to D.C. by a local nonprofit to lobby Congress to address rising costs and staffing shortages. (That lobbying trip was featured in reports by the Seattle Times and local TV stations.)

CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY Value Village, a for-profit thrift store chain accused of deceiving consumers, continues to find itself in hot water because of InvestigateWest reporting. In March 2022, the Washington Supreme Court agreed to review the case and deliver the final verdict on whether the company scammed consumers.

PLASTIC POLLUTION InvestigateWest has been examining one of the most problematic pollutants of the 21st century: plastic. We have examined efforts to address the problem through legislative solutions, the scope of plastic pollution in the Pacific Northwest, and how consumers and producers can shift our focus to reuse the plastic we’ve already created. This project was funded in part by the Sustainable Path Foundation.

DEMOCRACY Our reporting exposing how Washington state had disproportionately rejected ballots of Latinos formed the basis of a suit filed by the UCLA Voting Rights Project. The New York Times also cited our reporting in examining the issue nationwide in 2022. (The project was honored in the 2022 Best of the West journalism contest in the social justice reporting category, alongside the Houston Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times.)

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OUR HISTORY InvestigateWest was founded in 2009 by Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporters and editors after the paper stopped publishing. It was a critical time for the news business — “Papers Facing Worst Year for Ad Revenue,” declared the New York Times in the summer of 2008 — and thousands upon thousands of reporters lost their jobs across America. InvestigateWest was part of a pioneering group of news organizations created at that time to preserve public-service journalism through a nonprofit model relying on reader support and donations rather than advertising. There are now more than 400 news nonprofits across the country, building on the groundbreaking work of the early trendsetters like VTDigger in Vermont, inewsource in California, The Texas Tribune, ProPublica and InvestigateWest. Firefighter Steven Thime hops onto a tree stump to survey the progress of a prescribed burn in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. (Dan DeLong photo)

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SEND US TIPS Our investigative reporters welcome tips about big or important stories.

To contact a specific reporter, find their emails on the facing page, or you can use our general tips email (tips@invw. org) to send us tips and documents.

Find us online at invw.org. Joseph Lopez and other volunteers collect marine trash at Golden Gardens Park in Seattle.

(Dan DeLong photo)

DIVERSITY

MEET THE TEAM

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e’re building InvestigateWest with diversity, equity and inclusion as a core value, using that lens to guide our hiring, our story selection, our reporting process and our story presentation.

It’s built into our mission as we seek to support emerging journalists of color and do our part to

create a pipeline for reporters of all backgrounds to develop crucial investigative skills.

Meanwhile, our investigative reporting focuses on injustices and inequities impacting historically marginalized and vulnerable communities, including BIPOC and low-income communities, children with disabilities, foster children, nonnative English speakers, tribes, refugees and those previously incarcerated.

GROWTH In 2022, we added three full-time reporters and four part-time editors.

We also hosted three interns over the spring and summer.

QUOTABLE

Anushuya Thapa, a junior at Northwestern University in Illinois, interned in spring 2022.

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“I spent 10 weeks interning at InvestigateWest, where I was able to write and report on stories that mattered — from covering climate change and wildfires to the treatment of students with disabilities at Washington public schools. Working closely with seasoned reporters and editors at InvestigateWest helped lay the foundations for my professional network and gave me invaluable real-world experience as a reporter.”

OUR STAFF

JACOB FRIES

JACQUI BANASZYNSKI

JASON BEGAY​

ANDREA OTÁÑEZ

JIM SIMON

ZACHARIAH BRYAN

WILSON CRISCIONE

KAYLEE TORNAY

BRAELA KWAN

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Jacob Fries is executive director of InvestigateWest. Previously, Fries spent more than a decade leading the Inlander, a Spokane-based weekly. A Pacific Northwest native, he also worked as a reporter at the Tampa Bay Times and the New York Times, and his work has appeared in numerous publications, including the Seattle Times, the Denver Post and the Boston Globe. Reach him at jacob@invw.org.

SENIOR EDITOR Andrea Otáñez has worked as a reporter, copy editor, team editor and columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune and The Seattle Times. She is currently an associate teaching professor at the University of Washington, where she has developed courses in communication studies; race, gender, power and media representations of Latinx people; and critiques of journalistic objectivity.

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER Wilson Criscione, a lifelong Washingtonian, has reported for various outlets across the state, including the Bellingham Herald and the Inlander. His work has exposed top state officials for ignoring domestic violence, triggered criminal investigations into police, and uncovered mistreatment of children in schools and foster care. Reach him at wilson@invw.org.

SENIOR EDITOR Jacqui Banaszynski is a career journalist who now edits Nieman Storyboard, a global website that explores the art and craft of stories.

She is an emerita professor at the Missouri School of Journalism and faculty fellow at the Poynter Institute. While at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, her series “AIDS in the Heartland” won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing.

SENIOR EDITOR Jim Simon is currently an adjunct journalism instructor at the University of Washington. He is the former managing editor of Honolulu Civil Beat, a nonprofit focused on in-depth reporting in Hawaii and the Pacific. Simon is also the former managing editor of the Seattle Times, where he spent more than 30 years as an editor and reporter.

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER Kaylee Tornay has been documenting stories in Oregon and California since her high school days in Bend, Oregon, covering the progress of the water polo team. She has won regional awards for her work watchdogging public and private schools’ efficacy in meeting student needs, from safety to mental health support to instruction. Reach her at kaylee@invw.org.

SENIOR EDITOR Jason Begay i​s an associate professor at the University of Montana School of Journalism, where he teaches the Montana Native News Project, a capstone course that gives students the opportunity to cover in-depth news stories on the state’s seven reservations. He grew up on the Navajo Nation and has worked as a reporter at the Navajo Times, the New York Times, the Oregonian and the Oakland Tribune.

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER Zachariah Bryan has written for newspapers and magazines in Washington, Alaska and Montana. Most recently, he worked at the Daily Herald in Everett, where he was assistant news editor and reported on breaking news, the criminal justice system and the environment.

Reach him at zachariah@invw.org.

FELLOW & DIGITAL MEDIA PRODUCER Braela Kwan writes InvestigateWest’s weekly newsletter and oversees the organization's social media channels. Braela earned a Master of Journalism from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C., where she is based.

Her work can be found in The Tyee, Hakai Magazine, The Star Vancouver, and Slate Magazine.

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JUSTICE BY GEOGRAPHY Nathaniel Sanders was featured in our report "Full of Injustice: Burden of Court Fines Vary by Race, County in WA." The 60-year-old was living with his 90-yearold mother in Seattle and didn’t know how he’d come up with a quarter-million dollars in restitution and court fees.

(Dan DeLong photo) Find us online at invw.org.

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OUR BOARD BRANT HOUSTON PRESIDENT PAUL JOSEPH BROWN VICE PRESIDENT CELIA WU TREASURER JOE COPELAND SECRETARY ANIKA ANAND DIRECTOR BERIT ANDERSON DIRECTOR JEREMY GILBERT DIRECTOR DIANA HUYNH DIRECTOR DON SMITH DIRECTOR JOSHUA TRUJILLO DIRECTOR BEVERLY WYSE DIRECTOR Sumas, Washington, after flooding in 2021.

(Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office)

HOW TO HELP

SUPPORT FEARLESS REPORTING

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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.

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) charitable organization. Our tax ID is 27-0170663.

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

QUOTABLE

Local philanthropists Lisa Mennet and Paul Joseph Brown donated $150,000 to InvestigateWest in 2021.

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“The true value of InvestigateWest is evident in its journalism, in how it seeks to protect the public’s interest and hold government and corporate power accountable. Lisa and I are proud to support InvestigateWest’s special brand of in-depth reporting, and we have seen first-hand how the organization leverages every dollar to support its important mission.”

OUR SUPPORTERS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

InvestigateWest is funded by our community via individual donations and foundations. We're grateful to all the donors listed below who have decided to support investigative journalism for the Pacific Northwest. Their generous gifts make our work possible.

FOUNDERS CIRCLE ($10,000+) Lisa Mennet and Paul Joseph Brown Peter Mason Judy Pigott CASCADIA CIRCLE ($5,000-$9,999) Janice Camp Linda and Michael Connelly Amy Gulick Martha Kongsgaard and Peter Goldman EMERALD CIRCLE ($1,000-$4,999) Anonymous Jabe Blumenthal Joe Copeland William Donnelly Jane Hadley Peggy Kanaga Betsy Krieger Sam and Anne Miller Neal Pattison and Sarah Duran Don Smith Christine White Celia Wu Beverly Wyse

TRAILBLAZERS ($1-$999) Daphne Adair Frank Allen Berit Anderson Amanda Banry Martha Bell-Hart Linden Bentley Deborah “Deb” Berger Joy Borkholder Alan Borning Joni Bosh Kim Bradford Allan Branscomb Virginia Bullard Oren Campbell Deborah Carstens Mark Clemens Linda Clifton Joy Cordell David Cosman Carol Crews Joan Crooks Thad Curtz Bob Dahlstrom Theresa Defino Sally Deneen Cinde Donoghue Alice Doyel Glenn Drosendahl Kim Drury Zachary J Evans David Fairley Irene Fairley Fred Felleman Richard Fiddler

Janet Filips Mitch Friedman Jacob Fries Karen Garber Claire Gebben Christy George Jeremy Gilbert Michelle Girardot Mark Glyde Arthur Grunbaum Janet Hedgepath Jack Herndon Edie Hilliard Jennifer Hoffman Alexander Hollmann Andrew Holtz David Hostetler Brant Houston Lynne Huskinson Livia Jackson Robert Jacobs Jim Jensen Ann Jensen Julie Johnson Ruth Kagi Lorelei Kelly Kelly Kirkland Lila LaHood Ruth Lipscomb Shimin Liu Frank Madigan William Maiden John Marshall Michael Massa John McClure Wendy McClure

Ted McGregor Anne McLaughlin John McNamer Michael Milstein David Monthie Marta Montoro Alan Ness Lisbet Nilson Charles Nordhoff Rory O’Rourke Rosemary Orr Scott Otterson Neal Pattison David Peeler Robert Perkes Victoria Preuss Susanna Ray Robert Raymond Aaron Robertson John Rosenberg Audrey Royston Lee Rozen Michael Ruby Lisa Kjaer-Schade and Scott Schade Betsy Schultz Maureen Scott Brad Shannon Paul Shukovsky Amy Solomon Robin Stanton Daniel Stusser Nancy Sutherland Lynn Swisher Bill Thorness Cathy Tuttle

CONTACT If you notice any errors or omissions, please email us at services@invw.org.

Lee van der Voo Steven Van Slyke Silvia Vega Janet Wainwright Brett Walton Jennifer Ward Peggy Watt Carolyn Whetzel Katherine White Brooke Williams Stephen Willis Kristen Young INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT Arnold Ventures Bullitt Foundation Fund for Investigative Journalism Google News Initiative Martin-Fabert Foundation The Miami Foundation Reva & David Logan Foundation Seattle Foundation Sustainable Path Foundation INDEPENDENCE

Like any reputable news organization, InvestigateWest maintains a firewall between editorial decisions and its sources of revenue.

InvestigateWest’s financial supporters have no voice in editorial decisions.

QUOTABLE

Former state Rep. Ruth Kagi, after six new laws on the child-welfare system and $48 million in new funding passed the Washington Legislature in 2017.

“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.”

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

“InvestigateWest’s impact consistently belies its size.”

— Columbia Journalism Review

Mary Curry works on an art project with Mylah at Curry’s home-based child care center. (Dan DeLong photo)

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