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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 3

2025

Trump’s trade war with our northern neighbor

Donald Trump declared economic war on Canada over the weekend. The Wall Street Journal called it the “dumbest trade war.” The Buffalo News assessed the impact on Western New York – not good – and noted how little fentanyl enters the United State from across our northern border. NPR details the folly in Trump’’s fentanyl claims. CNN details what consumer products will get more expensive as a result. Canada strikes back. Experts discuss the impacts, including the exchange rate. (The American dollar was worth $1.48 Canadian as of Sunday night.) Hockey fans in Ottawa and basketball fans in Toronto boo[...]

Posted 6 days ago

Jan 31

2025

Calling out Jeremy Zellner

Updated: 3:57 p.m. I write this post staring at the tweet posted below by Jeremy Zellner, chairman of the Erie County Democratic party. In it, he takes our Geoff Kelly to task for reporting on the forum the party hosted on Saturday where eight mayoral candidates were invited to speak to party committee members from the city. According to Zellner, more than 200 committee members attended. The forum kicked off with a question to the candidates posed by Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz: Would the candidates promise not to seek the endorsement of the local Republican and Conservative parties?  The[...]

Posted 1 week ago

Jan 27

2025

Trump sets the table for lawlessness

I expected Trump’s first week in office to be terrible. It was worse than terrible, in so many ways.  I want to focus on Trump’s use of pardons. It wasn’t just those given to the January 6 insurrectionists.  Consider: Trump also pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for running a website used to sell drugs in what the FBI called “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the internet.” Trump called the prosecutors who put Ulbricht in jail “scum.” The president also gave pardons to two white Washington, D.C., cops responsible for the death of a[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Jan 20

2025

Welcome to 1933

Donald Trump is sworn in as president today. Welcome to 1933. That’s the year Adolf Hitler came to power. I’m not saying Trump will be another Hitler, but there are eerie parallels to their respective routes to power that should not be ignored. Trump’s more contemporary prototype is Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, termed “the ultimate twenty-first-century dictator.”    An op-ed in last week’s New York Times described Orbán’s playbook: In a second term, Mr. Trump’s actions may be even more dangerous because he is now following the playbook created by Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, who after losing and then[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

Jan 13

2025

What is The Buffalo News thinking?

The vacant Buffalo News building, sold to developer Douglas Jemal. Lee Enterprises bought The Buffalo News nearly five years ago and has vandalized it since. That was never more evident than last week. Let’s start with the extensive use of New York Times obituaries. It’s a pet peeve of mine.  A week ago Sunday, the paper’s local section included no fewer than five such obits, totaling some two pages, almost as much space as as what was devoted to local news in the section.  As is usually the case, the deceased had no connection to Buffalo. In fact, most were[...]

Posted 4 weeks ago

Jan 6

2025

Awaiting an avalanche of activity

The ICE detention center in Batavia could become a very busy place when Donald Trump acts on his campaign pledge to begin mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.  Dan Herbeck of The Buffalo News recently spent time at the facility and produced an inside look at life inside for its 530 detainees and what the future holds. The story notes that there are serious logistical and procedural issues that will likely preclude Trump from deporting immigrants en masse as quickly as he wants. Herbeck’s account includes statements from ICE officials about how well detainees are treated, a claim that’s been disputed[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Jan 2

2025

Building off a strong year in 2024

Investigative Post heads into the new year with a head of steam. Traffic to many news websites has flatlined or even dropped the past several years. That’s not the case with Investigative Post. Our pageviews in 2024 jumped by 62 percent and our traffic is more than double what it was in 2021. There’s a variety of reasons for our growth. We produced more content last year than ever, some 250 pieces for our website and another 50 we co-produced with our television partners. We also worked with AlignSimple and the Google News Initiative to develop and implement strategies to[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Dec 29

2024

April Baskin’s results fall short of her rhetoric

The Buffalo News sure is fond of April Baskin, the outgoing chair of the Erie County Legislature and incoming state senator. In a profile and subsequent editorial, The News portrayed her as an effective champion of social justice.  I beg to differ. The Legislature under her leadership has been a rubber stamp for County Executive Mark Poloncarz. She seems joined at the hip with Democratic Party HQ, which saw to it that she ascended to Tim Kennedy’s vacant Senate seat without serious opposition.   Baskin and her colleagues somehow decided construction of the new Bills stadium didn’t require an environmental impact[...]

Posted 1 month ago
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