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.

Jul 10

2022

Bad governance, poor politics

This week, Jim Heaney recaps Investigative Post’s coverage of the Common Council’s fumbling of its redistricting process and gives a shout-out to a half-dozen stories that have caught his eye. You can get Heaney’s insights in your inbox every Sunday morning by subscribing to WeeklyPost. Jimmy Griffin used to call city lawmakers the “Comical Council.” If only the current incarnation was the least bit funny. Geoff Kelly has been following the process of redistricting the Council’s nine districts, as required every decade based on new Census numbers. He first reported on the Council’s proposed district lines, gerrymandered to protect incumbents, then[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 7

2022

WNY’s segregation is no accident

In May, Investigative Post documented just how segregated Buffalo and Western New York is. We’ve now produced a story for WGRZ that dives yet deeper into the numbers and the causes and consequences of that segregation.

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 26

2022

Monday Morning Read

Here’s what caught Jim Heaney’s eye last week. You can get the earl scoop by subscribing to his free Sunday newsletter. Tom Dinki of WBFO had a terrific series of stories last week on the rise of the radical right in WNY. An audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli finds IDAs are delivering less bang for the buck. In other words, bigger subsidies, fewer jobs. Ken Kruly summarizes the latest campaign finance disclosure reports ahead of next week’s primary. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas thinks Roe v Wade ought to be just the beginning. Many corporations professing to support LGBT rights are nevertheless underwriting the likes[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 12

2022

Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter, an excerpt from which you’ll find below. Reinvent Albany has a good rundown of the good and bad of the session’s final flurry. Among the bad: a $10 billion allocation, negotiated in the dark, to provide huge subsidies to the semiconductor industry. There’s good analysis here and here. New York Focus has more, on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s slush funds and lack of transparency. The state Legislature passed a two-year moratorium on cryptomining. Will Hochul sign or veto the measure? The industry has given big to her campaign and that of her running mate. So,[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 7

2022

Only 2 of 6 school board seats contested

Only two of six district seats will be contested in this year’s elections for the Buffalo Board of Education. And they aren’t the two left open by exiting members Louis Petrucci and Hope Jay, the current Park and North district representatives. The deadline to file nominating petitions with the Erie County Board of Elections was May 31; the deadline to accept a spot on the ballot was last Friday. Ten nominees filed and all of them accepted their nominations. Theresa Drillings-Schuta, former principal of South Park High School who retired in 2020, is running unopposed in the Park District. Cindi[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 6

2022

OTB tries to stifle a critic

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

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

May 30

2022

Monday Morning Read (Tuesday edition)

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