Investigative Post

David Lombardo, host of The Capitol Pressroom, interviews Jim Heaney about his recent story on the pandemic’s impact on the Buffalo Niagara economy. Heaney’s reporting found the local economy employs fewer people than it has in at least 30 years.  

Jim Heaney discusses his story on the state of the Buffalo Niagara economy with Susan Rose and Brian Mazurowski on NewsRadio 930WBEN. Bottom line: fewer people are employed here than in 30 years and our recovery has slowed.

The coronavirus pandemic has stripped Buffalo-Niagara of so many jobs that the region employs fewer people in the private sector than it has in at least 30 years. The metro area was down 46,000 private sector jobs in September, compared with a year earlier. That amounts to a 9.6 percent drop. That leaves the labor […]

The audit released Friday by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli told us a lot of things we already knew or strongly suspected: the Cuomo administration failed to assess the value of high-tech projects like the Tesla plant in South Buffalo both before and after the investment of tax dollars, and largely kept the public and press […]

Jim Heaney and David Lombardo discuss problems with the IBM and Tesla projects in an interview broadcast Tuesday on The Capitol Pressroom. The program is heard on some 20 public radio stations across the state, including WBFO, where it airs weekdays at 8 p.m.  

Several years ago, the Cuomo administration spent $55 million of state taxpayer money to buy, renovate and equip seven floors of a downtown Buffalo office building to bring IBM to town. The payoff, we were told, would be 500 good-paying software engineering jobs and the start of a technology hub with all sorts of spin-off […]

Susan Arbetter and Jim Heaney discuss two Investigative Post stories that published this week regarding a proposal to build state-subsidized data centers in western and central New York. The interview aired on The Capitol Pressroom.  

An alliance of environmental, community organizations and local governments support a plan to build massive data centers in two upstate towns, including Somerset in Niagara County.  Project backers contend the data centers would help the environment, provide jobs to displaced workers and replenish the tax coffers of local governments.  “It really is a win-win-win for […]