Plus, a Reveal reporter awarded a Carnegie fellowship!

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** THE WEEKLY REVEAL
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Saturday, April 30, 2022

Hello! In this issue:
* How piled-on charges of battery added 97 years ([link removed]) to one man’s prison sentence.
* The latest on student loan forgiveness, Amazon’s sustainability initiatives and journalists’ thoughts on Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter – all with a Reveal context.
* A Reveal reporter has been awarded a prestigious Carnegie fellowship ([link removed]) .


** THIS WEEK’S EPISODE
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** How a 7-Year Prison Sentence Turns Into Over 100
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Anthony Gay was sentenced to seven years in prison on a parole violation but ended up with 97 years added to his sentence after he was repeatedly charged with battery – often for throwing liquids, like urine, at prison staff.

Gay lives with serious mental illness, and after time in solitary confinement, he began to act out. He acknowledges he did some of those things but says the prison put him in circumstances that made his mental illness worse – then punished him for the way he acted.

With help from Chicago-based lawyers, Gay appealed to the local state’s attorney.

“I decided I was going to fight even if I end up having to die in there,” Gay said. “I was going to fight against it because it was wrong.”

This week on Reveal ([link removed]) , we bring you more of Gay’s story and explore what happens when a self-described “law and order” prosecutor has to decide between prison-town politics and doing what he believes the law requires.
Listen to the episode ([link removed])

This episode is a partnership with the podcast Motive from WBEZ Chicago ([link removed]) .
🎧 Other places to listen: Apple Podcasts ([link removed]) , Spotify ([link removed]) , Google Podcasts ([link removed]) , Stitcher ([link removed]) or wherever you get your podcasts.
📸 Credit: Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune


** In the News
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What’s happening in the news – with a Reveal context
Photo by Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty

🔹 President Joe Biden is taking a “hard look” at student loan forgiveness. Biden on Thursday confirmed ([link removed]) that he’s considering canceling some federal student loan debt and said he would have “an answer on that in the next couple of weeks.” Advocates have pushed for up to $50,000 canceled per borrower, but Biden said that’s not on the table. On the campaign trail, he pledged ([link removed]) to forgive $10,000 per person.

In 2016, we investigated ([link removed]) how just about everyone involved in the student loan industry makes money off students – the banks, private investors, even the federal government. At the time, 42 million people owed $1.3 trillion in student debt. Our analysis found that if states had continued to support public higher education at the rate they had in 1980, they would have invested at least an additional $500 billion in their university systems. 💰 Read more about who got rich off the student debt crisis ([link removed]) .

🔹 Amazon is ahead of its own goal to use only climate-friendly power. The retail giant announced ([link removed]) this month that its investments in renewable energy power plants put the company on a “path to power 100% of its operations with renewable energy by 2025 – five years ahead of the original target of 2030.” But there was one detail left out of its press release: Much of the company’s energy use and pollution is uncounted.

In a story ([link removed]) noting that Amazon’s climate-harming emissions rose 20% in 2020, Seattle public radio station KUOW ([link removed]) cited Reveal’s reporting ([link removed]) on how Amazon drastically undercounts its carbon footprint. 📦 Read more about Amazon’s impact on the climate ([link removed]) .

🔹 Journalists are wondering what Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter ([link removed]) will mean for the future of media and free speech. The New Yorker’s Andrew Marantz noted ([link removed]) that it’s far from “unprecedented for a tycoon to control a de-facto town square – much of the Internet is already controlled by billionaires, faceless corporations, or entities under the influence of the Chinese security state.” Reporter Melissa Chan ([link removed]) also wondered if Tesla’s financial interest in China could lead to him taking direction from Beijing to censor tweets about violence against Uyghurs or protests in Hong Kong.

In 2018, after a Reveal investigation ([link removed]) found Tesla prioritized style and speed over safety in its electric car factory, Musk issued a series ([link removed]) of tweets ([link removed]) about the entire journalism industry and responded to our findings by calling us an extremist organization ([link removed]) . 🚗 Take a look back at more of our Tesla investigations ([link removed]) .


** Social Moment
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If you listened to last week’s Reveal ([link removed]) , you might remember one moment in particular: when former Sri Lankan Secretary of Defense Gotabaya Rajapaksa – who was accused of committing war crimes – was tracked down in the parking lot of a Trader Joe’s. We have video from that very moment.

Watch on Instagram ([link removed]) • Follow @revealnews ([link removed])


** In Case You Missed It
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The Disinformation Campaign Behind a Top Pregnancy Website ([link removed])
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Handcuffed and Unhoused ([link removed])


** Ending On a Good Note
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🏆 Aura Bogado Awarded Prestigious Carnegie Fellowship ([link removed]) . Senior reporter and producer Aura Bogado ([link removed]) has been named a 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. She is one of two journalists being honored in this year’s program and was selected from nearly 300 nominations. Through the fellowship, which comes with up to $200,000 in funding, she will focus on a book-length project that expands on her reporting about migrant children.

🏆 Laura C. Morel and Mohamed Al Elew Named 2022 Livingston Awards Finalists ([link removed]) . Laura C. Morel and Mohamed Al Elew were named as finalists in the national reporting category for Banking on Inequity ([link removed]) , their series that found widespread racial disparities in how loans from the federal Paycheck Protection Program were distributed.

🖥️ National Security Archive Launches Ayotzinapa Investigations Special Exhibit Page ([link removed]) . The exhibit features the archive’s related writings on the case, photos and videos mentioned in our After Ayotzinapa ([link removed]) three-part series and more.
The Weekly Reveal is written by Kassie Navarro, edited by Sarah Mirk and Andrew Donohue and copy edited by Nikki Frick. If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to a friend ([link removed]) .

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