SpotlightDC's September 2022 Update
- Illegal Pot Storefronts Owned by Absentee Corporations Hoodwinking DC!
- Developers Profiting From Vouchers to Build Substandard Housing!
- DC Pols and Bureaucrats Fumbling Lucrative On-line Sports Betting!
- How Detectives Finally Fingered the Potomac River Rapist!
BREAKING: Backed by SpotlightDC grants, watchdog reporters are landing important stories this fall that will shed light on uncovered stories and force reform. SpotlightDC: Capital City Fund for Investigative Journalism is your nonprofit dedicated to raising funds and awarding grants to reporters publishing impactful public interest journalism in the DC region.
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HOW TO APPLY FOR A GRANT
- Send a short query to info@spotlightdc.org or harry@spotlightdc.org.
- Following a positive response, apply for funds with a proposal of 750–1,000 words describing the project, reporting path, impact, budget and deadlines.
- Members of SpotlightDC’s Advisory Board evaluate the proposal and make recommendations to the Board of Directors for funding, after opportunities to revise.
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HOW DETECTIVES UNMASKED POTOMAC RIVER RAPIST
The crimes went unsolved for 30 years. First a woman attacked in her Gaithersburg home in 1991. Four months later an 18-year-old babysitting in her home in Germantown. Eight more women stalked and sexually attacked until the rape and murder of Christine Mirzayan, a 29-year-old intern with the National Academy of Sciences in 1998. Then silence. The Potomac River Rapist seemed to have eluded police. Until now.
Supported by a SpotlightDC grant, veteran crime reporter Paul Wagner investigates how police employed cutting edge DNA technology to follow leads leading to the arrest of Giles Warrick, 62, in South Carolina in 2019. DC and Maryland police extradited him for trial scheduled in November. The result is explanatory journalism at its best: a seven-episode podcast launching October 4 on WTOP wtop.com.
Listen to the promo:
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Paul Wagner has been reporting on true crime in and around DC for more than two decades. Meeting SpotlightDC’s mission of supporting groundbreaking investigative and explanatory reporting in our region, we also granted funds for Wagner’s 2021 podcast “Murder in a Safe Place” that helped detectives find the killer of a nurse in Prince Georges County in 1998.
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SPOTLIGHTDC IS LAUNCHING INTO THE FALL WITH A SLATE OF BREAKING INVESTIGATIVE AND EXPLANATORY JOURNALIST PROJECTS SUPPORTED BY YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS!
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ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM ALERT: DC SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT ALLOWS ILLEGAL CANNABIS MARKET TO FLOURISH
SpotlightDC awarded a grant to journalists Sarah Payne and Ken Cummins to investigate cannabis pop-ups and storefronts that are unabashedly and illegally selling pot under the noses of police and regulators. Why? Published in Capital Community News, their investigation unmasked the out-of-town owners, lack of business licenses and cash haul for dozens of these alleged small, local businesses. https://www.hillrag.com/2022/09/02/the-wild-west-of-unregulated-of-cannabis-retailers/
The reporters show how DC politicians and regulators pile on private sector enterprises from restaurants and gyms to landlords and lawyers but allow free-wheeling pot sellers to operate their lucrative weed businesses under the guise of small business hemp sellers and smoke shops. Showing immediate impact, DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson immediately tweeted the investigation and called for reform.
Stay tuned for investigative probes into the illegal pot dealers benefit from political cover and effective lobbying.
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AWARD ALERT: Hola Cultura’s series on DC’s Heat Islands is a finalist for Institute for Nonprofit News Award for Best Explanatory Journalism. SpotlightDC was pleased to fund the series published in Washington City Paper https://spotlightdc.org/heat-islands/
Hola Cultura https://holacultura.com followed up with a podcast streaming this summer, also supported by SpotlightDC: https://holacultura.com/dcheatislands/
STAY TUNED FOR SPOTLIGHT DC – SUPPORTED INVESTIGATIONS:
- The untold story behind the collapse of DC’s Forensic Crime Lab
- The debacle that led to DC’s failed sports betting app.
- Unmasking a scam that allows developers to soak the city yet provide substandard housing.
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Local watchdog journalism is on life support — let’s revive it together.
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