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.

Oct 17

2022

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll get Jim Heaney’s recommended reading first thing Sunday via email. President Biden’s decision to pardon those convicted on federal marijuana possession charges is a big deal — to a degree. How many people will get out of federal prison as a result? Zero. How many are held with similar convictions in state prisons? 30,000. Still, it’s a step forward to reverse the damage the war on drugs has inflicted on Black people. Bombing, raping, executing and otherwise terrorizing civilians. Russia’s savagery in Ukraine knows no limits. But it gets worse. Now the Associated Press reports the Russians[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 10

2022

Monday Morning Read

Monday Morning Read is extracted, with updates, from WeeklyPost, a free email newsletter sent Sunday mornings. Get Jim Heaney’s recommended reading by subscribing here. The deal announced last week by Kathy Hochul and Chuck Schumer to bring a huge microchip plant to Central New York represents the biggest subsidy package in state history. Micron will receive $5.8 billion — yes, billion — in grants, tax breaks and other goodies to build a massive production facility north of Syracuse. (The Genesee County IDA’s STAMP industrial park strikes out again.) The announcement includes the usual hyperbole about jobs and green operations, which Reinvent[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 29

2022

Podcast: Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Toles

Tom Toles is the most decorated journalist in the history of Buffalo news media. He cut his teeth as an editorial cartoonist at The Courier-Express, moved on to The Buffalo News, where he earned his Pulitzer in 1990, and then succeeded the legendary Herblock at The Washington Post in 2002. His work was syndicated in more than 200 newspapers across the country Along the way, the Hamburg native has received numerous awards for his work. Honors, in addition to the Pulitzer, include the National Cartoonist Society Editorial Cartoon Award in 2003 and the Herblock Prize in 2011. Toles retired in[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 26

2022

Monday Morning Read

Get the news a day earlier by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, emailed every Sunday morning. The Pew Research Center has released new studies on how people get their news and how they use social media to access media sites. First, how people get their news. Online has overtaken television, at least for those under 50. Newspapers, well, they’re yesterday’s news; only 5 percent of people consider print their go-to source of news. Social media? Half of Americans use social media “often” or “sometimes” to follow the news. Interestingly enough, the share of people who use social media “often” is[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 19

2022

Monday Morning Read

Here’s what caught Jim Heaney’s eye last week. Subscribe to his WeeklyPost and you’ll receive his recommended reading, along with a recap of the previous week’s reporting by Investigative Post. Updated: 2:10 p.m. Newspaper print circulation is tumbling in Buffalo and across the nation. The hope of the industry is to make up for that lost ground by growing online readership. Now, Rick Edmunds, the media business analyst for the Poynter Institute, reports that, too, is shrinking. He wrote this last week: Pageviews and uniques are not the favored digital metrics they used to be, but as they fell roughly[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 11

2022

Monday Morning Read

Subscribers to DailyPost received our recommended reading Sunday morning, along with a recap of Investigative Post’s reporting of the previous week. You can subscribe here. Michael Petro of The Buffalo News wrote an informative story on the expected push by the Pegulas for public funding to renovate KeyBank Center. The building is long in the tooth and needs upgrading. The trouble is, after forking over $850 million to build a new stadium for the Bills, no public officials seem interested in subsidizing the Pegulas again. The couple hasn’t helped their case by running the Sabres into the ground since they bought the[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 4

2022

Monday Morning Read

We’ve launched a redesigned website. It builds off the strength of our previous website — easy navigation and a clean, uncluttered design — and adds more visuals and features that point readers to our best work. Our upgrade was informed by market research performed in partnership with the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. They surveyed recipients of WeeklyPost, who said, among other things, that they wanted more graphics, photos and video clips embedded into stories, and guides to direct them to stories by topic. I find the websites of most news outlets to be cluttered messes. We[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Aug 29

2022

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll get Jim Heaney’s recommended reading – and more – a day early. Well, I suppose we should talk about Matt Araiza, the so-called Punt God drafted, signed and given a roster spot by our Buffalo Bills. It turns out he’s also an accused rapist. And, as a result, a former Bill, as of Saturday night. The obvious questions are when did the Bills find out about the accusation and how could they have allowed the situation to get as far as it did? Team officials initially claimed they did a thorough investigation, but the accuser’s[...]

Posted 2 years ago