Republic partnership named finalist for prestigious prize
The Arizona Republic, in a collaboration with three news organizations, is a finalist for the 2020 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, one of journalism’s most prestigious honors.
The series “Copy. Paste. Legislate” in cooperation with USA TODAY and the Center for Public Integrity is one of six finalists for the prize. The winner will be announced at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on March 12.
The Republic’s Rob O’Dell, an investigative and data reporter, and investigations editor Michael Squires helped spearhead the project, which constituted the first attempt to document the extent of special interests’ control over legislation nationwide.
The project’s data allowed reporters to show how powerful a tool “model legislation” has become, giving them control over the language used to write state laws.
It uncovered the most frequently copied model bills and how special interests have lobbied to spread them from state to state.
“There are few things more important for journalism to monitor than government, and there are few things we fear more than our government being secretly manipulated,” said Greg Burton, executive editor of The Republic. “With overwhelming evidence and painstaking data analysis, that is exactly what these reporters revealed.”
Journalists from the three organizations looked for legislation written by special interests and found it in all 50 states. They showed that when legislators propose new laws, they don’t always write the bills themselves. Corporations, interest groups or their lobbyists often write fill-in-the-blank documents and then offer them to state lawmakers.
Squires, a key editor on The Republic team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall, launched the idea after attending a 2016 Investigative Reporters and Editors conference.
A USA TODAY Network team of developers, data reporters, IT specialists and other reporters was established to build a computer-analysis system based on Squires’ idea.
O’Dell refined a computer algorithm that ran nonstop for months on the equivalent of 150 computers. That process revealed when special-interest language was copied into proposed legislation or bills that were signed into law.
Separately, Center for Public Integrity reporters in 2016 had written stories uncovering model legislation sponsored by players such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), tobacco companies and the pharmaceutical lobby. The center was also building a database to analyze similarities in legislation nationwide.
The Republic and USA TODAY joined efforts with the Center for Public Integrity in 2019 to deliver a stronger investigation and reach a wider audience.
Beyond its findings about the extent of copycat legislation, the series revealed how such bills allow car dealers to avoid consequences for deadly car defects, how so-called “heartbeat” antiabortion laws emerged from a 10-year campaign to craft the wording, and how bills that claim to target terrorist groups continue to be passed even when they don’t have any effect.
The annual Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting honors investigative reporting that best promotes more effective and ethical conduct of government, the making of public policy or the practice of politics. Each finalist or finalist team is awarded $10,000. The top prize is $25,000.
The program is run by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, which is dedicated to “exploring and illuminating the intersection of press, politics and public policy.” Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.