Categories for DailyPost

Jun 7

2022

Heaney to lecture at Chautauqua

Published by

Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney is teaching a three-day class on the media next month at the Chautauqua Institution. Here’s the synopsis for Heaney’s class, entitled The Media In Crisis: Causes and Consequences: Journalism is in crisis, and with it, democracy. We’ll examine the economic, social, political and technological forces that have undermined mainstream media outlets at both the local and national level, and explain the ramifications on civil society. We’ll also examine the rise of nonprofit news outlets and their growing reach and influence. Heaney is the founder, editor and executive director of Investigative Post, a nonprofit investigative reporting[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 6

2022

OTB tries to stifle a critic

Published by

Jim Shultz has gotten under the skin of Henry Wojtaszek, president and CEO of the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. Wojtaszek ostensibly works for a 17-member board of directors appointed by 15 counties and the cities of Buffalo and Rochester, but in reality, he has a free rein over OTB operations. And he’s apparently sicced one of his many lawyers on Shultz. Hodgson Russ is one of four law firms OTB presently has on retainer. As we reported last week, OTB over the past year has spent $333,684 for assorted legal services, much of it dealing with investigators probing claims[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 6

2022

Monday Morning Read

Published by

Jim Heaney shares his recommended reading from the previous week, which is also delivered Sunday mornings via his WeeklyPost newsletter. You can subscribe for free here. That didn’t take long. Just days after Congressman Chris Jacobs announced he would support gun control measures in the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas, he withdrew as a candidate for re-election. The GOP just wouldn’t have it. Analysis here from The Buffalo News and The New York Times. The Washington Post reported a few days ago there have been 232 mass shootings in the United State so far this year. And[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 2

2022

OTB paying for an army of lawyers, lobbyists

Published by

Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. continues to spend big bucks – large amounts of public money, that is – on attorneys and lobbyists.  Documents obtained by Investigative Post through a Freedom of Information request show OTB paid $333,684 to four Buffalo-based law firms between May 18, 2021, and April 1 of this year.  The legal fees are in addition to the $16,500 per month OTB pays to Albany lobbyists currently under contract.  What the lobbyists are doing for the money can be gleaned from documents on file with a state regulatory commission. But the bills submitted by two of OTB’s[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 1

2022

Defense attorneys to DA: Zip it

Published by

Last week the three court-appointed defense attorneys for the accused Tops shooter asked the judge trying the case to impose a gag order on Erie County District Attorney John Flynn. The defense wants Buffalo City Court Judge Craig Hannah to instruct the DA to refrain from speaking publicly about the case until the trial. Their fear, according to a Buffalo News report: Flynn or his staff might reveal details of the case or make other statements that risked tainting the prospective jury pool “in such a way that it will be impossible for [the accused] to get a fair trial.” [...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 31

2022

Buffalo superintendent’s mixed track record

Published by

Tonja Williams has some things going for her as she seeks the permanent appointment as superintendent of Buffalo public schools. They start with her people skills. Williams, who has been interim superintendent since Kriner Cash resigned in March, is a good listener and a realist in telling people what she can deliver. She’s familiar with the city and district, having lived in the Buffalo area her whole life and worked in city schools for 32 years.  “She seems to listen to all sides of an issue and doesn’t seem to get drawn into any personal conflict, any ulterior agendas that[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 31

2022

Gains by the right in school board elections

Published by

Michael Wooten interviewed Layne Dowdall on her recent story about candidates elected to local school boards who were endorsed by right wing organizations. In the interview, which aired on Tuesday on WGRZ’s Town Hall, Dowdall reported that the candidates pledged to oppose the teaching of Critical Race Theory, sex education and Covid vaccine and mask mandates. Twenty-two of these candidates won election in western and central New York, half of them in Erie and Niagara counties. Two of them won seats on the Williamsville School Board, the second largest district in the region.

Posted 3 years ago

May 30

2022

Monday Morning Read (Tuesday edition)

Published by

This week’s post includes stories of interest from Sunday and Monday, to cover the  holiday weekend. You can receive the entire WeeklyPost newsletter, which also includes a summary of our best reporting from the previous week, by subscribing here. The Buffalo News tackled the subject of racism in Western New York. A very good companion piece to the story we published a couple of weeks ago. The New York Times profiled the pain of the killings on one Buffalo family. Margaret Sullivan laments that the toll that media fragmentation means we’ll probably never see a lawless president brought to heel[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post