Podcast Archives - Investigative Post

Investigative Post this week launches a new feature, Money In Politics, based on research and analysis by Ken Kruly, who has had a distinguished career in government finance. Money In Politics will be accompanied by a companion podcast that will feature Ken and Geoff Kelly, who covers government and politics for Investigative Post.

The first podcast, posted below, recaps Ken’s findings on the fundraising efforts of Sean Ryan, the Assemblyman running for state Senate. Ken found Ryan’s major donors include many out-of-town labor unions. He and Geoff also discuss the prospects of Mayor Byron Brown running for an unprecedented term, and what politicians do with their unused campaign funds when they retire.

This edition of Investigative Postcast features a Dec. 4 panel discussion on the growing hostility towards the press, and the public’s right to know, from the White House to the State House to City Hall.

Panelists included Jerry Zremski, Washington bureau chief of The Buffalo News, Jimmy Vielkind, Albany bureau chief of Politico New York, and Steve Brown, investigative reporter with WGRZ. Jim Heaney, Investigative Post editor, moderated.

For our latest Postcast, Daniela Porat interviewed De’Jon Hall, a co-author of a two-year study by UB and Cornell Law Schools alleging that the Buffalo police department engages in unconstitutional and discriminatory policing.

With Porat’s recent investigation into illegal searches by a group of officers in the department’s Strike Force and Housing Units and public demands for more transparency on police checkpoints, the professionalism of city police and their treatment of people of color is the hot-button issue of the day.

“When you stop me from driving to get to work downtown for no other reason than just to stop me that does something to my trust in my community and my police,” Hall said in the interview. “It makes me feel inherently criminal.”

Hall is a 2016 graduate of the University at Buffalo Law School and manager of The MOCHA Center, a drop-in center for LGBTQIA PoC with sites in Rochester and Buffalo.

After a hiatus, Investigative Post has resumed its podcast program with a Jim Heaney interview with Sarah Cohen, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and editor with The New York Times.

Cohen, a Buffalo native, will be the keynote speaker at Investigative Post’s gala dinner on Oct. 19 at the Hyatt Regency. She’ll discuss the state of investigative reporting and Donald’s Trump impact on the media.

Cohen covers some of that ground in her podcast interview with Heaney.

“A lot of places and people are realizing that investigative reporting … based on facts and documents and holding officials accountable is the one thing that makes any given new organization different than other any other new organizations,” she said.

Tickets for the gala can be purchased here.

In this episode of Investigative Postcast, reporter Daniela Porat talks about her recent story on the failure thus far of city’s elected officials to address the inadequate training of police in de-escalation tactics and other measures to avoid a Ferguson-type situation here in Buffalo.

Porat, in her discussion with Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney, also spoke about her curious interview with Masten Common Council Member Ulysees Wingo done in the course of researching her story. Wingo has protested police violence in other cities, yet expressed a hands-off attitude when it comes to the lack of police training in Buffalo.

In the latest episode of Investigative Postcast, environmental reporter Dan Telvock talks to Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards about the risks posed by lead in drinking water, and why it’s a bigger problem than local governments want to acknowledge.

https://investigativepost.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Episode-9-FINAL.mp3

That’s made harder by the fact that there’s a “culture of complacency” towards lead in drinking water, Edwards said.

“They’re trying to defend the indefensible,” Edwards said, discussing Investigative Post’s recent story about how the Erie County Water Authority was testing the homes of many employees, instead of the most-at-risk homes, as required by federal law.

In addition, the water authority knowingly tested homes that had no risk of lead.

“This is a very dangerous path and I think they’re just trying to rationalize that they broke the law,” Edwards said.

A failure to test properly allowed the Flint, Michigan, water crisis to go undetected, he said, because authorities were sampling homes with no lead in them and mistakenly thinking the town’s water supply was safe. “The only way the law works is if you find the worst case homes,” he said.

Edwards will join Telvock via Skype for a panel discussion on lead poisoning, Wednesday November 16, 7 p.m. at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site in Buffalo. Dan will recap his award-winning reporting for Investigative Post on lead poisoning in Buffalo. Other participants will include Dr. Yanna Lambrinidou, an affiliate faculty member at Virginia Tech and founder of the non-profit children’s environmental health organization Parents for Nontoxic Alternatives; and Elizabeth McDade, Program Coordinator of the Rochester Safe and Efficient Homes Initiative. 

You can buy tickets here. 

In this episode of Investigative Postcast, Investigative Post’s environment reporter Dan Telvock discusses his award-winning coverage of Western New York’s lead poisoning problem, which has recently prompted the City of Buffalo to introduce new initiatives to combat the problem.

Telvock explains why lead poisoning poses such a threat to young children and why New York’s schools are now testing their water for lead, thanks to an emergency law passed earlier this year.

“In the past, they really didn’t do it on a regular basis. Our schools never were really aggressively testing for lead in any of the water sources in the schools,” he said.

Telvock also discusses why an older state initiative to end childhood lead poisoning by 2010 faltered. “It sort of became a forgotten issue,” Telvock said. “It seems like they thought their work was done but in fact they failed.”

You can hear more about Investigative Post’s reporting on this issue at our event on November 16 at 7 p.m. at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, located at 641 Delaware Ave. in Buffalo. Telvock will recap his work and moderate a panel discussion of experts, including Dr. Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor who helped uncover the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

You can find more information and buy tickets here.

In this episode of Investigative Postcast, Lee Coppola talks with Jim Heaney about his career as an investigative reporter and journalism educator.

Coppola discussed the best story he did for The Buffalo News, which became the basis of a book and Hollywood film; his experience as a television reporter; and what prompted him to take the job as dean of the School of Journalism at St. Bonaventure University. Coppola also discussed what’s been gained and lost as reporters take advantage of technology to research and produce stories.

Investigative Post is honoring Coppola for distinguished service to local journalism at its gala dinner next Wednesday, Oct. 19. The dinner features Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for The Washington Post, who was interviewed on a previous podcast, as keynote speaker. Tickets for the dinner can be purchased online.