ICYMI: The Chicago Sun-Times dedicated seven pages of the Sunday, Oct. 1, edition to our series, done in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago, about growing racial disparities in traffic stops across Illinois.
We are proud of this project on so many levels.
Because of our reporting, the public now has access to historical data to hold their own community leaders accountable for one of the most insidious forms of racial profiling.
We also elevated the stories of Black drivers who are disproportionately subjected to traffic stops. Our reporting looked past the volume of stops and asked why Black drivers are increasingly stopped for non-moving violations like a broken tail light or an object dangling from a rear view mirror, only to be let off with a warning.
In the process, we also laid the foundation for the Investigative Project on Race and Equity, which is poised to expand soon (stay tuned!). And we collaborated with rising journalists through our apprenticeship program to ensure that our tradition of investigative reporting continues.
If you want more of this kind of journalism, consider supporting the Investigative Project. We have a chance to double donations made during our fall NewsMatch campaign. It doesn’t start until November, but you can pledge here today to double your gift.
Meet our team of apprentices behind the project
Our apprenticeship program provides opportunities for emerging reporters to work on investigative projects in collaboration with experienced editors and journalists. Through hands-on experience and individualized training, apprentices practice the fundamentals of investigative reporting, including obtaining public records, information gathering, working with data, reporting, fact-checking and interviewing sources.
Meet our inaugural team of apprentices, who played a crucial role in our reporting.
Zaynaib “Ola” Giwa Giwa is a data analyst who has worked at Chicago Public Media, the Invisible Institute and the University of Illinois at Chicago, creating and breaking down into usable form a wide variety of databases involving FOIA requests and public records. Learning how “to interview the data” and explaining how charts were developed “to find the story” are her biggest takeaways from her Investigative Project apprenticeship, she said. She hopes to travel to Japan someday to feast on real ramen, as well as visit her extended family in Nigeria. She also hopes to continue to develop data tools that “make it easier for journalists to do their job.”
Leslie Hurtado Hurtado is a bilingual multimedia journalist who’s interned for WBEZ, Cicero Independiente, WGN-TV, Spanish Public Radio, Telemundo Chicago, City Bureau, Borderless Magazine and WTTW-PBS Chicago. In 2022, she won an Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in radio journalism. During her apprenticeship, Leslie said she learned that “paying attention to details” often helps paint the bigger picture. “In investigative reporting, it’s crucial to examine every piece of information, allowing you to construct a solid foundation and then figure out how to present that information in a way that’s accessible and engaging to communities in need,” she said.
She enjoys being part of “the rise in smaller media outlets that pioneer innovative methods of storytelling in collaboration with their communities.”
Taylor Moore Moore is a freelance journalist and a program coordinator for the International Women’s Media Foundation. Her reporting has been published in The Guardian, VICE, TIME, The New Republic, CityLab, Literary Hub, Columbia Journalism Review, In These Times, The A.V. Club, Next City, Chicago magazine, Chicago Reader and South Side Weekly.
Pictured above: Illinois State Rep. La Shawn Ford, Chicago Public Media Producer Michael Liptrot and Investigative Project apprentice Taylor Moore in studio at WBEZ for an interview with Ford on our police stop investigation.
Did you catch us on WBEZ and Vocalo?
Listen to our pair of audio features that originally aired last week on WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR news station.
Also, our team has made the rounds of talk shows this week to discuss what we found through our reporting.
For three years, we’ve been plugging away to build the Investigative Project, which is devoted to producing data-driven investigative journalism and training reporters to incorporate those techniques in their own work. Thanks to you, our nearly 1,000 supporters and donors, for helping us to get this far. We need your continued support, particularly during our fall NewsMatch campaign in November and December. Pledge here today to double your gift.
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Investigative Project on Race and Equity Governing Board
Kevin B. Blackistone Blackistone is a longtime national sports columnist now at The Washington Post, a panelist on ESPN’s “Around the Horn,” a contributor to National Public Radio and coauthor of “A Gift for Ron,” a memoir by former NFL star Everson Walls. Blackistone is also a professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.
Rui Kaneya Kaneya is a senior editor at ProPublica, where he helps oversee projects for the Local Reporting Network. He previously served as a senior reporter at the Center for Public Integrity. Before joining Public Integrity, he was an investigative reporter for Honolulu Civil Beat, a correspondent for the Columbia Journalism Review and investigations editor at The Chicago Reporter.
Laura S. Washington Washington is a Chicago Tribune contributing columnist and political analyst for ABC 7-Chicago. Washington brings decades of experience as a multimedia journalist and nonprofit professional. From 2003 to 2009 she served as the Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor at DePaul University and is a former editor and publisher of The Chicago Reporter.
Advisory Council
Susy Schultz, Chair
Kevin B. Blackistone, Vice Chair*
Johnathon Briggs
Tom Brune
Angela Caputo
Thom Clark
Kathleen Humphries
Rui Kaneya*
Alden K. Loury
John McDermott Jr.
Josh McGhee
Sharon McGowan
John Schrag
Christine Wachter
Laura S. Washington*
James Ylisela Jr. *Denotes Governing Board member
