as 2019 closes, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the work we accomplished this year

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Dear Revealer,

We’re not a part of the media pack, chasing the same daily stories as everyone else. We don’t measure our success in clicks and ad revenue.

Instead, we do things a little differently. Our reporters spend months tracking down hard-to-find people and digging up secret documents. Our producers take you places you’ve never been, from a tiny courthouse in rural Mississippi to a massive Amazon warehouse outside of Indianapolis. Once they find a problem, they knock on doors and work the phones until they get people in power to answer their questions.

Our journalists do this with a simple goal: to help fix this country’s most pressing problems. And they’re able to do that because of Reveal fans like you. We’re a people-powered, nonprofit organization that lives and dies by donations. Without your support, we couldn’t do this work.
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you took a stand for fact-based journalism.
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So, as 2019 closes, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on what that work accomplished this year.

Together, we …

Exposed how Amazon’s relentless push for speedy delivery maims its workers.

Workers’ groups are now using our data as part of a national coalition to fight for better working conditions. Democrats in Indiana are calling for investigations after we revealed how Gov. Eric Holcomb’s government dismissed safety citations against Amazon for a worker death, just as he was trying to lure Amazon’s HQ2 to his home state. When the governor pushed back with a cease-and-desist demand, we stood by our reporting, and the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists issued an open letter calling his move “a threat to press freedom.” Bernie Sanders, the senator and presidential candidate, has called for a federal labor investigation. The House Education and Labor Committee is considering addressing both the Indiana case and Amazon's high injury rates in hearings it expects to hold next year. Finally, our Twitter replies were filled with people saying they were canceling their Prime accounts.

Inspired profound changes to stop the exploitation of workers who tend to the elderly.

After our reporting showed rampant wage theft and abuse of workers in the growing residential care home industry, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said two state agencies—the Department of Social Services and Department of Industrial Relations—are working on a new enforcement initiative to crack down on the abuse of workers and residents. The state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing launched a new outreach campaign to educate workers on labor laws, including their right to earn a minimum hourly wage. Federal and state lawmakers have begun crafting new legislation to regulate the industry. High school teachers and college academics told us they’ve begun citing our work to teach students about the realities of board and care homes. “To say I'm appalled would be a gross understatement!” one biology instructor in Colorado told us in an email.

Forced the federal government to disclose the whereabouts of immigrant children housed in clandestine facilities.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, the government agency that cares for unaccompanied minors, had never made certain facilities’ existence public or even disclosed them to the minors’ own attorneys. That changed after our reporting, as the government acknowledged using the facilities, which specialize in providing care for youth with mental health and behavioral challenges, and notified minors’ lawyers. The government’s failure to disclose the whereabouts of every known child in its care called into question “the basic underpinnings of our democratic institutions,” said the attorney representing the children.

Changed how rape investigations are conducted in Texas.

In response to our project with Newsy and ProPublica, the Texas Legislature created the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Task Force inside the governor’s office, bringing money and support at the highest levels of state government to reform how rapes are tracked, investigated and prosecuted across the state. Legislators provided $3 million to fund the task force, which will collect, analyze and make publicly available a new set of information showing where gaps remain in the system to prevent and prosecute sexual assaults. The Austin Police Department -- a main focus of our national investigation -- retrained its 300 investigators, pledged to create a new computer tracking system, added a new supervisor to the sex crimes unit and ordered a deeper independent review of how it handles all rape cases. “We have serious issues and we need to take quick action that corrects the patterns that allowed these cases to be handled improperly,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler said. The FBI also fast-tracked changes
to its crime-reporting system to fix a major flaw in the system uncovered by the project.

Made a mother in Mississippi believe in the power of having a reporter show up and ask questions.

We followed 13-year-old Isaiah’s two-year journey through the Mississippi criminal justice system, from solitary confinement in adult jail to eventual freedom. His mother believes reporter Ko Bragg’s continued questioning of the district attorney and her presence in the courtroom was the reason her son was no longer charged as an adult, but simply as a child. That fact alone removed him from solitary confinement in an adult prison. “I felt like the Lord sent you. I feel like He knew I was struggling. He knew I didn't have any help,” she told Ko.

These stories show how, in 2019, investigative reporting can still break through the noise and help fix some of our communities’ most pressing problems.

Let’s have an even bigger impact next year. If you become a Reveal member ([link removed]) by Dec. 31, with a donation of just $5 a month or more, you’ll get our new FACTS T-shirt and, most importantly, make our work possible. Anything you can contribute will help.

Here’s to making even more change in 2020.

Andy Donohue
Managing Editor


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