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in the new nonprofit
journalism,
our goals
are to investigate
significant social and
political problems and
human rights issues,

and uncover corporate
and government abuses
of power.


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Our Investigations

Schuster Institute Investigations

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Links to Human Rights & Social Justice Reporting

Page 2

Commentary  

No Drugs, Few Strategies, But A Little Good News On Anti-Biotic Resistance, Maryn McKenna, 4/28, Wired Science.

The Scouts Ask: Gay or Nay? E.J. Graff, 4/26, The American Prospect.

Don't Leave the House, E.J. Graff, 4/19, The American Prospect.

An Unlikely Champion, Anne Driscoll, 4/16, Chime for Change.

Boston Reels, E.J. Graff, 4/16, The American Prospect.

Search vs. Display Advertising: Which Promises More Bang for the Buck? Michael Blanding, 4/15, Forbes.

The New Bird Flu, and How to Read the News About It, Maryn McKenna, 4/5, Wired Science.

2013 Fellows' Books

"An Eternal Harvest: The Legacy of American Bombs in Laos," Karen Coates & Jerry Redfern, June 13, ThingsAsian Press.

"The Business of Baby: What Doctors Don't Tell You, What Corporations Try to Sell You, and How to Put Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Before Their Bottom Line," Jennifer Margulis, April 16, Scribner.

"This Way More Better: Stories and Photos from Asia's Back Roads," Karen Coates & Jerry Redfern, March 13, ThingsAsian Press.

"The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism," Trevor Aaronson, January, Ig Publishing. 

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Appearances

4/6. Trevor Aaronson will speak on the topic of "Prisons, Profiling and Preemptive Prosecution" at the First United Church of Tampa, 7308 E. Fowler Avenue, Tampa, FL.

4/12. Trevor Aaronson will speak about his new book "The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism" at The 7th Annual Reva & David Logan Investigative Reporting SymposiumUniversity of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.

More appearances>

Awards & Honors

The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) has given their 2013 June Roth Memorial Book Award to Schuster Institute Senior Fellow Maryn McKenna for her book "Superbug."

Tracie McMillan, Schuster Institute Senior Fellow, has received a 2013 Hillman Prize for Book Journalism for her book "The American Way of Eating."

"Tijuana Greyhounds Find New Lives North of the Border" by Schuster Institute Senior Fellow Erin Siegal and co-author Eros Hoagland has received a W3 Gold Award for Web Video in the Public Service category.

"The American Way of Eating" by Schuster Institute Senior Fellow Tracie McMillan has been selected as a 2013 Books for Better Life Award in the green category.

Checking in at #4 on Project Censored’s 2013 Top Ten List of Censored Stories (those that mainstream media doesn’t get around to telling) is Schuster Institute Senior Fellow Trevor Aaronson’s reporting on the FBI’s involvement in domestic terrorist plots. 

Standing in with Martha Stewart & Whole Living’s 8 Food Visionaries is Schuster Institute Senior Fellow Tracie McMillan, author of “The American Way of Eating.” 

The National Women's Political Caucus has awarded a 2012 Exceptional Merit in Media Awards (EMMA) to Jan Goodwin, Schuster Institute Senior Fellow, for her 2010 investigative Good Housekeeping article, "The VA Healthcare System's Dishonorable Conduct."

More awards>


Affiliations

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Global Investigative Journalism Network

Committee of Concerned Journalists

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© 2008-2013 Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, 02454. All rights reserved.



The Front Page





Recent Reporting by
Schuster Institute Senior Fellows


Mother Jones NEW How the FBI in Boston May Have Pursued the Wrong "Terrorist," Trevor Aaronson, 4/23, Mother Jones.
WGBH Reporting on the aftermath of the Boston Marathan bombing by Phillip Martin:
In Search of Normalcy Following Terror in Boston, 4/22;
Law Enforcement Asks for Public's Help in Bombing Investigation, 4/17,
WGBH Boston Public Radio News. 
Fronteras 3-part series on children and deportation by Erin Siegal with her Soros Foundation team Beth Caldwell and Joel Medina: 
American Children in Mexico Face Educational Challenges,
 4/19;
A Revolving Door for Deported Children, 4/19;
Children Left Behind: Deported Parents, American Kids, 4/16,
Fronteras.
Christian Science Monitor Immigration reform: What the last 'path to citizenship' did for immigrants, and A Teen's Immigration Reform: Seeing Amnesty as Long Shot, Self Deports, Erin Siegal, 4/7, Christian Science Monitor.


In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, and because slavery persists today, we are joining WGBH Boston Public Radio and PBS's American Experience to present stories of slavery now and then.
WGBH
Special Report: Human Trafficking / Underground Trade: From Boston to Bangkok. In an eight-part broadcast on WGBH Boston Public Radio (89.7 FM) beginning Jan. 8, Phillip Martin, Schuster Institute Senior Fellow and WGBH Senior Reporter, will trace human trafficking routes from East Asia to the Northeast Corridor of the United States. 
American Experience
PBS’s The Abolitionists. In a three-part series premiering Jan. 8, PBS's American Experience chronicles abolitionists Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown and Angelina Grimké, and their efforts to turn a "despised fringe movement against chattel slavery into a force that literally changed the nation."
Brandeis University
The Role of Journalists in Exposing Slavery. Authors Adam Hochschild and Brooke Kroeger, who is also a Schuster Institute Senior Fellow, make the case for human rights journalism and undercover reporting in informing the public about slavery.


Human Rights
 & Social Justice Reporting



Human Trafficking
  & Modern-Day Slavery

Slavery has not ended. Today, human beings are enslaved all over the world—including in the United States. For example, they are forced to work in agriculture, fishing, gravel pits, mines, restaurants, as domestic servants, and in brothels.

Underground Trade: From Boston to Bangkok, Phillip Martin, WGBH Boston Public Radio.

Call it Trafficking, E.J. Graff, January 3, 2013, The American Prospect.

Human Trafficking Still A Problem In The U.S., interview with Schuster Institute Senior Fellow & WBGH Senior Reporter Phillip Martin, former Open Society Fellow Noy Thrupkaew, News-Press writer Amy Bennett Williams, September 26, 2012, Talk of the Nation, NPR.

"Commentary: Did slaves catch your seafood?"
Sophie Elsner, April 12, 2012, GlobalPost.

"The Fishing Industry's Cruelest Catch,"
E. Benjamin Skinner, February 20, 2012, Bloomberg Businessweek. Learn more: Slavery In Your Seafood

How U.S. Budget Cuts Prolong Global Slavery," 

E. Benjamin Skinner, June 28, 2011, Time.com.

More about human trafficking and modern-day slavery>


Food, Health, Environment

What You Don't Know About Episiotomies Can Hurt You, Jennifer Margulis, 1/27, Motherlode, the New York Times.

Fecal Transplants: A Clinical Trial Confirms How Well They Work, Maryn McKenna, 1/17, Wired Science.

UK 'Horseburger' Scandal: Did The Meat Originate In The US? Maryn McKenna, 1/16, Wired Science.

Almost-Untreatable Gonorrhea: Proof That It’s HereMaryn McKenna, 1/11, Wired Science.

Fracking's Health Calamities Left to Fester, Jan Goodwin, September 20, 2012, Truthout.

One Woman's Mission to Immunize Children Worldwide with the Polio Vaccine, Jan Goodwin, July 2012, Real Simple.

FERN/ABC Report Reveals Link Between Bladder Infections and Overuse of Antibiotics
in Chicken,
July 11, 2012, Food & Environment Reporting Network, reported by Maryn McKenna.

The Real Danger in America: Hospital Birth, Jennifer Margulis, July 10, 2012, BlogHer. 

Why Your Hamburger Hates America, Tracie McMillan, June 29, 2012, The Washington Post.



Fraud & Corruption in International Adoptions

Fatal Adoption, E.J. Graff, 2/22, Slate.com.

Call it Trafficking, E.J. Graff, 1/3, The American Prospect.

The Stolen Makeni Children, E.J. Graff, 1/11/2012, Slate.com.

In April, 2012 a presidential commission in Sierra Leone sided with birth families of children they say were adopted internationally without their knowledge or consent. 

Finding Fernanda: Two Mothers, One Child, and a Cross-Border Search for the Truth, Erin Siegal, Beacon Press, May 8, 2012.

Siegal does a fantastic job of breaking down a complicated story, and gives voice to the distinct players involved in Guatemalan children being adopted by US families. “Finding Fernanda” is a gripping read that offers glimpses of hope in what was an otherwise heartbreaking system.
       —The Christian Science Monitor,
           November 28, 2011

Mexico Adoption Bust Reveals Vast Child Trafficking Ring, Erin Siegal, February 29, 2012, Huffington Post.

Adoption Illegalities in Guatemala: What the U.S. Government Knew, and What Was Said and Done, with excerpts from Erin Siegal's new book "the U.S. Embassy Cables: Adoption Fraud in Guatemala, 1987-2010."

The Makeni Children, August 9, 2011, Slate.com.

In a riveting three-part series, Schuster Senior Fellow E.J. Graff investigates the adoption of two children from Sierra Leone, whose American families learned—13 years after the adoption—that birth families were looking for their children.

More about fraud and corruption in international adoption>



Criminal Justice

Prisoners Rule, James Verini, November issue 2012, Foreign Policy.

Public Secrecy About Child Sexual Abuse

For four years Schuster Senior Fellow Hella Winston’s reporting in The New York Jewish Week kept alive the issue of child sexual abuse in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. 
Read Winston's reports>

DNA Access Law for Massachusetts Prisoners

Failing the DNA Test, Michael Blanding and Lindsay Markel, November 20, 2011, The Boston Globe Magazine.

Schuster Senior Fellow Michael Blanding and Assistant Director Lindsay Markel teamed with the Boston Globe Magazine to investigate why, at the time, Massachusetts was one of only two states without a DNA access bill, and what that means for prisoners who claim that DNA testing will help prove their innocence. Since the publication of "Failing the Test," Massachusetts has passed the DNA access bill into law. Read more>

More about DNA access, the causes of wrongful conviction, and the Justice Brandeis Innocence Project>



Government & Corporate Power

Schuster Institute Senior Fellow Trevor Aaronson asks the question: Are We Catching Terrorists? Or Creating Them? His new book "The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism" (Ig Publishing) is in bookstores on January 15, 2013.

Reporting from Far Rockaway, New York following Hurricane Sandy, Schuster Institute Senior Fellow Hella Winston examines the mismatch of services to needs of the people, and discovers a local youth group stepping in to help with recovery.

Injustice in Political Asylum is Schuster Institute Senior Fellow Jan Goodwin's focus in Broken Promises: Seeking Political Asylum in America, Ladies Home Journal, April 2010.

Torture survivors and rape victims seeking political asylum are locked up alongside hardened criminals in U.S. prisons, where they often remain for months, even years.

Goodwin won three journalism awards for this investigative report. More investigative articles by Jan Goodwin>



Sexual Harassment of Teens at Work

Few people understand how aggressive and hostile sexual harassment can be. And few teens are adequately prepared or instructed about how to face it at their after-school, weekend, or summer jobs. 

Summer Jobs Often Lead to Harassment, ABC's WCVB-TV, July 10, 2009.

Is Your Daughter Safe at Work? PBS Now/Schuster Institute, Feb. 20, 2009.

Is Your Daughter Safe at Work? Good Housekeeping, July 2007.

More about sexual harassment of teenagers in the workplace> 



Selected ArticlesMore Institute Articles