Jim Heaney

Jim Heaney is editor and executive director of Investigative Post. He was an investigative reporter with The Buffalo News from 1986 to 2011 and a reporter and editor with The Orlando Sentinel from 1980-86. His coverage over the years has focused on economic development, local and state government, politics, education, housing and transportation, and he was an early practitioner of computer-assisted reporting. Heaney has won more than 20 journalism awards and was a finalist for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.

Feb 28

2016

Outrages: Lack of diversity in the trades

Charlotte Keith reported last week about the lack of diversity in local trade unions. Minorities account for 17 percent of the workforce in Erie County, but only 11 percent of membership of 18 building trade unions. What’s more, that number has barely budged over the past decade, despite a pledge by the unions to dramatically diversify their membership. A fair amount of the blame falls to the unions, but there’s plenty of blame to go around. Unions and community groups that recruit and train minority job candidates generally don’t get along. They accuse each other of a lack of communication.[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Feb 26

2016

Heaney talks diversity with ‘Pressroom

Jim Heaney, following up on Investigative Post’s report on a lack of diversity in Buffalo’s construction trades, discusses the problem with Susan Arbetter on The Capitol Pressroom. Heaney also discusses the latest developments involving lead poisoning in the city. The interview runs from 36:47 to 48:35.

Posted 8 years ago

Feb 13

2016

Brown’s failure of leadership on lead

Erie County Health Commissioner Gale Burstein said the other day that lead poisoning is the biggest health risk facing young children in the city. She’s been saying for some time that her department could use help in dealing with the problem, which data suggests might be getting worse in Buffalo’s inner-city. Mayor Byron Brown responded last week by saying she should not count on City Hall for any additional help. He effectively said “it’s not our job.” Yeah, I know, pretty tone deaf, especially in light of what’s going on in Flint, and the national awakening it has prompted when[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Feb 11

2016

Heaney talks lead poisoning on ‘Pressroom

Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney takes Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown to task for his unwillingness to collaborate with the Erie County Health Department to tackle the city’s lead poisoning problem. Heaney termed as “outrageous” the mayor’s acceptance of the status quo. Listen to his interview Thursday with Susan Arbetter of The Capitol Pressroom. The interview runs from 22:13 to 36:48. Brown’s unwillingness to work more closely with the county will be the topic of Heaney’s “Outrages & Insights” written and video blog and will post on InvestigativePost.org and broadcast on WGRZ this coming Sunday.

Posted 8 years ago

Feb 10

2016

Another Mayday! for SolarCity

I wrote a post back in October about SolarCity’s mounting losses and falling stock price that carried the headline “SolarCity: Mayday! Mayday!” My post was prompted by a record loss in the third quarter that sent the company’s stock price down to $38 a share. SolarCity yesterday reported another huge loss for the fourth quarter that resulted in a year-end loss totaling $710 million. As in almost three-quarters of a billion dollars. The stock market responded by dumping SolarCity shares, dropping the price to $26.35 at the close of trading Tuesday. Things went from bad to worse overnight Tuesday and[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Feb 8

2016

WNY job growth continues to lag

The Buffalo and Western New York economy is humming, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a bevy of local and state politicians. But the numbers tell a different story. Job growth in the Buffalo market grew by an annual average of 0.8 percent between 2010 and last year, half the national average of 1.6 percent. Local job growth last year of 1.1 percent was significantly less than the national average of 1.9 percent of the statewide average of 1.7 percent. Steve Brown and I discuss on this week’s edition of Outrages & Insights.

Posted 8 years ago

Feb 4

2016

Quick Hit: Heaney on Urban League scrum

Jim Heaney, writing in The Public, sizes up the brouhaha in county government regarding the Buffalo urban League and concludes the agency’s defenders are ignoring a compelling case of wrongdoing. “We’re not talking honest mistakes involving $20,000 in excessive charges,” Heaney writes. “No, the bogus bills involved, among other transgressions, charging for work never performed. And former employees describe a culture where they were encouraged to “bill creatively”—by inflating the number of hours they worked and charging the county for time spent on things only tenuously related to social work.”

Posted 8 years ago

Jan 31

2016

Heaney talks media with Capitol Pressroom

Jim Heaney and Susan Arbetter of The Capitol Pressroom discuss the declining fortunes of legacy media, in particular newspapers, and the rise of nonprofit newsrooms. Heaney expressed solidarity with the style of adversarial journalism practiced by Glenn Greenwald and his colleagues at The Intercept and said the upstate press could and should have been more aggressive over the past several decades in reporting on New York’s troubled economy and corrupt state government. The interview runs from 21:39 to 36:02 at this link.

Posted 8 years ago

Jim Heaney

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