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.

Oct 22

2023

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to WeeklyPost and get Jim Heaney’s take a day early. A lot of folks agreed with the decision to allow college athletes to get paid for endorsement deals. But it’s quickly gotten out of hand. Market Watch reports on 10 athletes earning more than $1 million in endorsement deals, led by Bronny James, son of LeBron, who is pocketing an estimated $5.9 million even though he has yet to play a game for UCLA. Perhaps more troubling, as reported by The New York Times, is the practice of boosters ponying up to pay players. Reports The Times: The rapid[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 16

2023

Heaney discusses iPost, journalism and democracy

Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney was the guest Sunday morning on on Sree’s Sunday #NYTReadalong. Guest host Neil Parekh interviewed Heaney on the work of Investigative Post, the rise of nonprofit news sites, the legacy of retired Washington Post Editor Marty Baron and the threat posed to democracy by the decline of daily newspapers. “Government that’s not watched is going to drift towards self-interest, corruption and other malfeasance,” Heaney said. The interview portion of the program begins at 14:50, following Parekh’s overview of the Sunday edition of The New York Times, and picks up again at 1:20:23.

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 15

2023

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to WeeklyPost and get Jim Heaney’s recommended reading in your inbox Sunday mornings. Let’s start with the menu at concession stands at Sabres games, which kicked off Thursday with a dreadful home loss to the New York Rangers. (They lost again last night.) Beer is up to $17 a can – $17.50 if you want craft. Pizza is $9.25 a slice. I could go on, but you get the picture. Season ticket holders get a discount, but still. Delaware North, which recently lost the concession contract for Bills games once the team moves into its new stadium, has promised[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 11

2023

More misdeeds involving Niagara Falls candidate

Guns gone missing and an order to stay away from a former girlfriend are included in the past of Carlton Cain, GOP candidate for Niagara Falls mayor, who once was a top official in the city’s police department. Cain said he doesn’t recall signing an administrative order of protection issued by Acting Police Superintendent Michael Trane in 2019. “I guess if I signed it, it happened,” he said. The woman in question, who was cooperating with an Internal Affairs investigation of Cain, did not return a phone call from Investigative Post. Trane has not responded to an interview request. In[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 9

2023

Further decline at The Buffalo News

The wheels continue to fall off the rickety wagon known as The Buffalo News. In fact, the decline is gaining speed. I’m told the staff has been informed by management that daily print circulation is down to about 35,000. Last time I reported, based on 2022 numbers, it was 56,000. That’s down from a peak of 310,000 in the mid ’90s. Digital subscriptions are another 35,000. (More on that later.) There are a variety of reasons for the precipitous decline in print circulation, starting with changing news consumption habits. Nearly nine in 10 Americans get their news from digital platforms;[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 8

2023

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to WeeklyPost, our weekly email newsletter. Below is just of the half of what you’ll get in your inbox every Sunday morning. Health policies in red states are contributing to higher premature death rates among its citizens, The Washington Post reports. To help make its point, The Post compared data from three neighboring counties in New York (Chautauqua), Pennsylvania and Ohio. Reported The Post: State lawmakers gained autonomy over how to spend federal safety net dollars following Republican President Ronald Reagan’s push to empower the states in the 1980s. Those investments began to diverge sharply along red and blue lines,[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 6

2023

Misconduct allegations against ‘Falls mayoral candidate

Carlton Cain, the Republican candidate for mayor of Niagara Falls, was investigated at least twice on charges of misconduct while serving on the city’s police force before retiring in 2019. Charges that are a matter of public record include his efforts to retrieve his stolen police weapon and allegations that he removed files on him compiled by the department’s Internal Affairs unit. Cain, in an interview with Investigative Post, denied removing his Internal Affairs records. The department’s investigation of the allegation reached no conclusion. He was docked three days pay involving the gun incident. A third matter involved a woman[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 1

2023

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll get a complete newsletter every Sunday. Buffalo is on the Canadian border. (Duh). The way things are going, Canada is going to get slammed by climate change, Maclean’s magazine reports. By the 2070s we will be living in a fundamentally different climate than the one our country was built for. Cities across the country will begin to reach “climate departure”: a symbolic rubicon, after which a climate falls completely outside historical norms. Even the coldest year, going forward, will be hotter than the hottest in the past. What does that say about our prospects, sitting right[...]

Posted 2 years ago