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.

May 21

2023

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll receive it, free, in your inbox Sunday mornings, including a summary of Investigative Post’s reporting of the previous week. The Trace, a nonprofit news organization that reports on gun violence, marked the one-year anniversary of the Tops Massacre with a story that notes the lack of progress addressing systemic problems on the city’s East Side. Local foundations have directed some money east of Main Street. The state, too. City Hall? Not really. In fact, the response from Mayor Byron Brown and the Common Council has been tepid. Geoff Kelly is looking over the mayor’s proposed budget[...]

Posted 2 years ago

May 15

2023

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll Jim Heaney’s recommended reading for the week. As in below. Michael Joseph and his Clover Group have been in the news of late — that’s an understatement — as they were in 2021 when they bought a mansion that shares a waterfront with Mar-a-Lago, home to you-know-who. Here are snippets published in September 2021 by The Real Deal, a real estate website, regarding Joseph’s purchase of a West Palm Beach mansion for $15.9 million. The two-story home in the Prospect Park neighborhood has six bedrooms and nine and a half bathrooms, according to Realtor.com. Completed[...]

Posted 2 years ago

May 11

2023

Calls for consequences for Clover and its CEO

Pressure is growing on the Clover Group and its CEO, Michael Joseph, in the wake of a federal lawsuit accusing the company of “racist and illegal housing discrimination practices.” On Thursday, the Erie County Legislature unanimously passed a non-binding resolution calling for the dismissal of several Clover executives surreptitiously recorded discussing the company’s practice of avoiding areas with significant Black populations when choosing sites for senior apartment complexes. Joseph was not among those recorded in the conversations. The resolution declares: “The allegations against the Clover Group and the corresponding evidence are clear and disturbing enough that immediate action needs to occur,[...]

Posted 2 years ago

May 7

2023

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe, for free, to WeeklyPost and you’ll not only get Jim Heaney’s recommended reading (below), but his summary of Investigative Post’s reporting for the previous week. For starters, here’s a thoughtful piece by Dick Tofel, a retired ProPublica executive, on what NPR and commercial television newsrooms are doing to fill some of the void being created by the demise of local daily newspapers. Tofel cites research that concluded neither are rising to the occasion. In other media news, Vice News appears headed for bankruptcy and Maureen Dowd of the New York Times laments the disappearance of traditional newspaper newsrooms. I’ve worked in two[...]

Posted 2 years ago

May 3

2023

Big shakeup at the besieged OTB

The embattled Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. is finally getting reformed. In a big way. The state public benefit corporation — mired in allegations of malfeasance and subject to multiple critical audits and investigations — saw its entire 17-member board of commissioners terminated Tuesday night, thanks to a budget provision sponsored by Sen. Tim Kennedy of Buffalo and Assembly Member Monica Wallace of Lancaster, both Democrats. New board members will be appointed and weighted voting instituted to reflect the population of the 15 counties and two cities that in-effect own OTB. That will shift control from mostly rural counties controlled[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Apr 30

2023

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to our WeeklyPost newsletter and you’ll get Jim Heaney’s recommended reading – and a whole lot more – in your inbox Sunday mornings. The deal to build the Titans a new stadium in Nashville (the current venue is only 24 years old) will involve a larger upfront taxpayer handout than the deal here in Buffalo. The daily paper down there has the details, The Buffalo News compares the deals and Neil deMause of Field of Schemes offers his analysis. He also reports on a new deal in Calgary to build a $1.2 billion arena for the NHL Flames. Meanwhile, The Toronto Star reported that the Ottawa Senators, a[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Apr 23

2023

The Buffalo News was never a “crown jewel”

There’s more news to report regarding The Buffalo News – none of it encouraging. The Poynter Institute, a major news media think tank and training center, published a story last week that chronicled the decline of The News. The story is aptly headlined The Buffalo News was the crown jewel of Warren Buffett’s news empire. Now it’s just another Lee paper. Reporter Angela Fu did a good job of detailing all that’s gone wrong since Lee Enterprises bought the paper in 2020, starting with its loss of corporate independence. However, I think the story portrayed the paper in a better[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Apr 17

2023

Monday Morning Read

Get WeeklyPost delivered straight to your inbox Sunday mornings by subscribing here. Is the bloodletting over at The Buffalo News? There are ominous signs from Montana, where Lee Enterprises has implemented cuts at five of its newspapers because of the chain’s downward financial spiral. If history holds, Lee will demand similar cuts at its other properties, including The News. Speaking of The News, music critic Jeff Miers has left the paper. That gives readers one less reason to buy the paper. Cuts have hurt The News across the board, none moreso than arts and entertainment coverage. There’s the previous departures of Jeff Simon and Colin Dabkowski and the gutting of[...]

Posted 2 years ago