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.

Nov 24

2025

Stepped up government surveillance

The U.S. Border Patrol is no longer just policing the border at entry points such as the Peace Bridge in Buffalo and the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls. An investigation by the Associated Press has found the U.S. Border patrol “is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious.” Once limited to policing the nation’s boundaries, the Border Patrol has built a surveillance system stretching into the country’s interior that can monitor ordinary Americans’ daily actions and connections for anomalies instead of simply targeting wanted suspects. Started[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Nov 17

2025

A MAGA dream team or nightmare?

WKBW’s Michael Wooten reports that Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik has recruited what I consider a “rogues’ gallery” of Western New York Republican operatives to help run her campaign for governor next year. Michael Kracker is chair of the Erie County GOP and a top aide to state Sen. Rob Ortt of Niagara County. He’s been named chairman of Stefanik’s campaign. Kracker most recently ran James Gardner’s bid for Buffalo mayor — a schizophrenic effort in which Gardner’s often intelligent discussions of policy were undermined by dark warnings against creeping socialism and rampant crime should Democrat Sean Ryan prevail. Ryan won[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Nov 14

2025

Investigative Post launches annual fundraising drive

Good journalism doesn’t come cheap. Here at Investigative Post, the stories we publish are often weeks, sometimes months, in the making. That’s because we’re doing original reporting that involves complicated issues or topics that people in power want to hide from public view. Our work requires patience and persistence, and the financial support of the Western New York community. We don’t sell advertising or charge for access to our website or newsletters. Instead, as a nonprofit, we rely on donations from our readers who value our work and believe in the importance of independent reporting. We’re in the midst of[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Nov 11

2025

“TreeGate” involving Niagara Falls mayor, engineer

Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino at a recent press conference. Photo via the Niagara-Gazette. The City of Niagara Falls paid a private contractor to remove trees in front of houses owned by the city’s mayor, his neighbor, and the city’s lead engineer, according to city documents obtained by the Niagara Gazette. City Engineer Robert Buzzelli included his own property and the home of Mayor Robert Restaino on a list of four addresses where trees were targeted for removal under a $20,000 contract change order authorized by city lawmakers in July, according to the documents. The documents, obtained through a pair[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Nov 10

2025

Creeping autocracy under Trump

The New York Times, in consultation with scholars, came up with a dozen indicators of creeping autocracy to gauge Donald Trump’s impact on our democracy. “The sobering reality,” The Times wrote, “is that the United States has regressed, to different degrees, on all 12.” Here are the benchmarks: Stifling dissent and speech. Persecuting political opponents. Bypassing the legislature. Using the military for domestic control. Defying the courts. Declaring national emergencies on false pretenses. Vilifying marginalized groups. Controlling information and the media. Attempting to take over universities. Creating a cult of personality. Using power for personal profit. Manipulating the law to[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Nov 5

2025

Niagara Falls cop blows whistle on nepotism, OT abuse

Niagara Falls Police Department. Photo by James Neiss, Niagara Gazette. Claims that Niagara Falls police officers abused departmental overtime and padded their pensions. Allegations of civil service law violations and nepotism involving administrative unit supervisors. Questions about employees’ use of public grant funds provided by the state to curb gun violence in the city. Concerns that a “completely absent” police chief has turned a “blind eye” to administrative “thievery.” In a six-page message dated Sept. 1, Niagara Falls Police Lt. Troy Earp unloaded a litany of complaints about the inner workings of the Falls police department. A copy of Earp’s[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Nov 3

2025

Our risky casino economy

An op-ed in The New York Times (gift link) makes a case that the U.S. economy emerging under Donald Trump is akin to a casino, replete with all the risks that go with it. He has ushered in … a casino economy, built on speculation and risk. Across markets and policy, wagers on the future are being made with other people’s money at a cost that could prove catastrophic. This economy is largely defined by froth. What was once a fluke has become the operating system of modern markets: like stock prices largely driven by sentiment rather than fundamentals (recall[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Oct 27

2025

The sorry state of local news

Nationally, the state of local news is pretty depressing according to the just-released study produced by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. As summarized by Poynter, the respected journalism think tank: The country has lost nearly 3,500 newspapers and more than 270,000 newspaper jobs over the past two decades, leaving 50 million people in “news deserts,” areas where people have limited or no access to reliable local news sources. The closures this year primarily affected papers belonging to smaller, independent owners. Most of the papers that have closed were weeklies, which the report defines as papers printed fewer than three[...]

Posted 2 months ago