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 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 3 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 3 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 3 months ago

Oct 23

2025

From conservative to kinda crazy

Back in the day, Republican leaders in Western New York were conservatives. Congressmen like Jack Kemp and Jack Quinn. Erie County Executive Ed Rutkowski. State Senator George Maziarz. Party chairmen like Bob Davis and Jim Domagalski. Party leadership started down a slippery slope a couple of decades ago. Carl Paladino switched party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in 2005 after his friend Tony Masiello, a Democrat, retired from public office. Mike Caputo, an operative who learned at the feet of Roger Stone, became a player locally when he ran Paladino’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign and his influence grew from there. Nick[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Oct 20

2025

The Niagara County angle to national scandal

You may have read about the private chats among Young Republican operatives in four states, including New York, that went public via a report by Politico, which summarized the content as follows: They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery. Then there was the quote “I love Hitler.” The response from MAGA types varied. The New York Republican Party disbanded the state chapter of the Young Republicans. Vice[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Oct 13

2025

Will a judge and jury believe this narc?

To hear Erie County Sheriff John Garcia tell it, D.J. Granville has an unblemished record as his chief of narcotics. Except he doesn’t, as reported by Charlie Specht. The key evidence seized from a Buffalo home associated with [David] Burgin was thrown out of court after Granville and other members of his narco unit were caught on video allegedly staging evidence, conducting illegal searches, and misleading a judge, court records show. A federal judge wrote that the case revealed “damning evidence of … unlawful conduct by law enforcement officers” and said Granville’s actions were “an egregious violation of the Fourth[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Oct 6

2025

The beginning of the end of the Buffalo News’ print edition

The Buffalo News announced Friday that it will stop printing a Monday edition starting Nov. 3. It’s part of an industry trend, with some dailies publishing print editions as infrequently as three days a week. The News’ print circulation continues to spiral downward. Paid circulation has dwindled to an average of 23,792 according to the annual publisher’s statement filed in June with the United States Postal Service. Digital subscriptions were 67,430. The numbers pale in comparison with peak print circulation in the 1990s of over 300,000 daily and 400,000 on Sundays. Why eliminate the Monday edition? It’s one of the[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Sep 29

2025

MAGA’s media takeover

Donald Trump’s efforts to suppress First Amendment rights — Jimmy Kimmel being the most obvious example — are only part of the picture. Perhaps even more ominous are efforts by Trump-aligned billionaires to buy media outlets. It’s already started with the purchase of CBS’ parent company by a conglomerate controlled by the son of Larry Ellison, the 81-year-old tech oligarch who is a generous campaign contributor and advocate of the type of Big Brother surveillance society imposed by the Chinese government on its people. Reports Oligarch Watch on Larry Ellison: “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly[...]

Posted 4 months ago