Articles for Investigative Post staff

Dec 5

2022

Vote for iPost’s top story of 2022

Update: Voting is closed. With apologies to David Letterman, here’s our list – in no particular order – of the Top 10 stories we produced in 2022. Geoff Kelly, our senior reporter, produced three of them: Roswell Park’s connection to a Russian oligarch. Retired supervisors testify in a federal lawsuit that Buffalo police often use the N word. Link Black officers in another lawsuit contend a police captain went on a racist rant. Link J. Dale Shoemaker, who joined the staff this summer, reported on the huge subsidies Amazon received to locate a warehouse in Niagara County and Erie County’s[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 24

2022

Investigative Post is hiring a fundraiser

Investigative Post, Buffalo’s nonprofit investigative reporting center, is seeking a Director of Development. We’re in a growth mode and intend to aggressively increase our revenue. Responsibilities include prospecting, soliciting and stewarding major donors, including foundations, corporations and individuals, and growing our membership base of smaller donors. Must be adept at working with data and marketing strategies that include direct mail, social media and digital advertising. Event planning and management is a plus. Our CRM is Little Green Light. Minimum qualifications include five years of fundraising or comparable revenue-generation experience and proven success in goal achievement; strong communication, planning and organizational[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 6

2022

Podcast: Reporting the Amazon story

On Tuesday, Investigative Post reported on the huge subsidy package Amazon is receiving to build a warehouse in Niagara County. Amazon will receive $124 million in tax breaks from the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency, plus state tax credits of at least $2 million. In exchange, Amazon will employ 1,000 people, most earning $15 an hour. Reporter Dale Shoemaker sat down with Garrett Looker, host of our podcast series, to discuss the reporting. You can watch the interview via our YouTube channel or listen to it as a podcast. Our intent is to publish a podcast a week. Coming up[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Aug 15

2022

Judge tosses libel lawsuit against iPost

A state Supreme Court judge has dismissed a libel lawsuit brought by a Buffalo developer against Investigative Post and reporter Dan Telvock. State Supreme Court Judge Mark Montour also ruled developer James Sweizy and his company Greenleaf Development & Construction failed to prove Telvock’s story, published in 2017, contained any false information and dismissed a related “injurious falsehood” claim. The 2017 report documented how officials at SUNY Buffalo State failed to follow usual procurement rules in dealing with Greenleaf regarding construction of student housing adjacent to the Elmwood Avenue campus. The story also reported that Swiezy gave a college official[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Aug 12

2022

Meet Investigative Post’s newest reporter

The hiring of I’Jaz Ja’ciel completes the rebuilding of Investigative Post’s reporting staff. A Buffalo native, Ja’ciel comes to Investigative Post from Spectrum News, where she was a multimedia, general assignment journalist. Before that, she was a weekend anchor for WBFO. Ja’ciel, 29, earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism at SUNY Buffalo State, winning numerous awards for academic excellence. She went on to earn a master’s degree from Buffalo State in data science and analytics. “I’Jaz brings a lot of skills, including broadcast production and data-based reporting, to our newsroom,” said Editor Jim Heaney. Said Ja’ciel: “Having lived in Buffalo[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Aug 9

2022

iPost adds another reporter

Garrett Looker has joined Investigative Post’s reporting staff. An Indiana native, Looker won a Best News Feature award from the Iowa Newspaper Association while an intern at the Sioux City Journal. While a student at Ball State University, he produced and directed award-winning documentary videos — one examining the history of racial segregation in Muncie, another following Ball State’s bid to take over the city’s struggling public school system. Looker, 25, earned a bachelor’s degree in magazine journalism and a master’s degree in digital storytelling from Ball State. “Garrett’s skill set as a storyteller, visual and otherwise, makes him a[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 18

2022

Investigative Post adds a reporter

J. Dale Shoemaker has joined the reporting staff of Investigative Post. A native of central Pennsylvania, he most recently reported for The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He worked for three years with PublicSource, a nonprofit news organization in Pittsburgh after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as managing editor of The Pitt News, the student newspaper which publishes daily. He also served a stint as reporter at the Newark Star-Ledger. Shoemaker’s reporting for PublicSource prompted Pittsburgh to pass a transparency law for city contracts that requires the release of additional information on spending prior[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 12

2022

iPost’s redistricting coverage in The Nation

For the past month, Investigative Post’s Geoff Kelly has been covering the showdown between Buffalo’s Common Council and a coalition of activists and good government organizations over the once-in-a-decade opportunity to redraw the city’s Council districts. First he set up the conflict, providing background on the gerrymandering of a decade ago, then reporting on the largely opaque process undertaken by the Council this year and the mobilization of those urging the Council to do a better job. Then he described the extraordinary June 28 public hearing on the Council’s plan, which kept the current gerrymandered districts largely the same. More[...]

Posted 4 years ago