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The Investigative Fund

The Nation Institute's Investigative Fund provides support for the research costs associated with investigative journalism. The Fund emphasizes reporting on subjects often ignored by the mainstream media, and seeks to improve the scope and overall quality of investigative reporting in the independent press.


Behind the Housing Crisis

Kai Wright examines the disproportionate impact of the wave of foreclosures on African Americans—what he calls "the strip mining of black wealth"—in his Nation cover story, The Subprime Swindle. WATCH Kai Wright discuss this economic theft. Wall Street insider Nomi Prins focuses on what went wrong in Congress and what it can do to alleviate the crisis in her Mother Jones article Why the Economy Went South and accompanying timeline Where Credit is Due. More
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The Republican War on Voting

Art Levine
(The American Prospect)

During the third and last presidential debate, Senator McCain said that the voter registration group, ACORN, was "on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country." But an investigative article from March shows that alleging voter fraud--a favorite Republican tactic for scrubbing the polls--is less likely than a person getting struck with lightning. - Eds.

Using the Department of Justice, friendly governors, and its usual propaganda outlets, the GOP has propagated the myth of voter fraud to purge the rolls of non-Republicans. MORE

2008-04-01


Northern Exposure

Sheila Kaplan and Marilyn Berlin Snell
(The New Republic)

Sarah Palin says she will advocate for families of special-needs children once in the White House. But in Alaska, with a birth defect rate that's twice the national average, she has at every turn blocked initiatives that would limit environmental toxins known to cause fetal abnormalities. MORE

2008-10-22


The Fence to Nowhere

David Neiwert
(The American Prospect)

The Minutemen promised their supporters a high-tech border barrier. Instead, they got a five-strand barbed-wire fence and a bunch of radical splinter groups. MORE

2008-09-22

In Arizona, Illegal Immigrants Face Federal Criminal Charges

David Bacon
(The Nation)

Massive workplace raids are part of a pressure campaign for guest-worker programs. And undocumented workers now face federal criminal charges for what used to count as the administrative equivalent of a parking ticket. MORE

2008-09-17


How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits

Joshua Kors
(The Nation)

Joshua Kors has won the prestigious Joseph Galloway Award of 2008 for this two-part series. He will accept the prize at the Military Reporters and Editors conference on November 14 at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. -Eds.

Wounded soldiers returning from Iraq are increasingly being wrongly diagnosed by the military, which prevents them from collecting benefits. MORE

2007-03-29


The Family

Jeff Sharlet
(Harper)

In this Investigative Fund-supported book, Sharlet takes a penetrating look at the untold story of Christian fundamentalism's most elite organization, a self-described invisible network dedicated to a religion of power for the powerful. MORE

2008-06-30
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The Nation Institute's Investigative Fund provides support for the research costs associated with investigative journalism. The Fund emphasizes reporting on subjects often ignored by the mainstream media, and seeks to improve the scope and overall quality of investigative reporting in the independent press. Above all, we want to support reporting with the potential to have a social impact. The Fund encourages its grant recipients to publish their findings in a variety of print, broadcast and electronic outlets.

Director Joe Conason and investigative editor Esther Kaplan initiate and oversee Investigative Fund projects. Joe is an award-winning investigative reporter and a national correspondent for The New York Observer and a columnist for Salon.com. Esther is a longtime reporter and editor and author of the investigative book With God on Their Side: George W. Bush and the Christian Right.

The first step in applying is to email us a story query and a budget request. It's useful to include information about what's new and enterprising about the research, your reporting approach, the story's potential impact, and what publication or broadcast outlet is interested in the piece.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.

Investigative Archives


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