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Rich Lord conducting an interview with Mayor Bill Peduto and former PublicSource reporter Juliette Rihl. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
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Dear Reader,
Journalism is the nervous system of democracy. I’ve been in this profession for a while now, but it still relieves me to be reminded that all I really need to do to serve my community is to be an alert little nerve cell. When something feels unusual, off-balance or worrisome, I want to know more and transmit what I learn to you.
Example: January 2022 found me yearning to write about property taxes. But where to start? Then, former colleague Rob Rogers told me about an art installation and event at The Mattress Factory focused on racial disparities in property tax assessments. The installation also touched on bias in the appraisals that inform home sales and mortgages.
Like a good little nerve cell, I transmitted the information — by writing a story. With that, we launched the series Unbalanced: How property assessments create winners and losers.
One reader was Megan Confer-Hammond, executive director of the Fair Housing Partnership of Greater Pittsburgh. She zoomed in on the story’s description of an experiment in which a woman who was selling an East Liberty house presented it to one appraiser with indicia of Black ownership and a second with suggestions of white ownership. The second appraisal, conducted three days after the first, was $36,000 higher.
Confer-Hammond did her own investigation and eventually filed a housing discrimination complaint with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. That is expected to lead to a HUD investigation and a conciliation process. If that doesn’t work, the matter could go before a judge.
For me, that warranted another story. The complaint process could shed local light on bias in the appraisal industry, which has emerged as a national issue. Without PublicSource’s reporting, it’s unlikely Confer-Hammond or HUD would have known about the disparate appraisals.
Recently, Editor-in-Chief Halle Stockton and CEO Eric Zack entrusted me with the role of managing editor of PublicSource. With your support, I’ll be a different kind of nerve cell — sometimes bringing information directly to you, but also serving as a conduit between reporters and helping them to connect. We’re determined to build a newsroom — or a nervous system, if you will — that pulses with stories for a better Pittsburgh.
Donations from readers like you are a critically important part of this process, helping power this transfer of information and make sure that the entire system can thrive. To meet our budget goals, we’re asking readers to help us raise $20,000 by June 30, and we need your help. Will you make a gift of $25 or more today to support the work of our nonprofit newsroom?
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Sincerely,
Rich Lord
Managing Editor
PublicSource
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To be removed from fundraising messages, please email [email protected]. Donations by check can be made payable to PublicSource and mailed to 1936 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15219. So that we can credit you properly, please include your email address with your gift.
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