Your Assignment: Spot Check Stimulus Spending
BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, July 21 2009
As of July 10th, more than $64 billion in stimulus spending has rolled out of the federal treasury, and construction projects are taking place across the country. At least we think they are. Under the law, reporting on Recovery.gov won't be fully implemented until October, and even then, we're relying upon federal agencies, states and other local entities to update the federal government on the progress of construction. And even that will happen only once a quarter. ProPublica's Reporting Network has a different idea. They've picked out 520 road and bridge construction projects of the 5,800 or so projects funded by the stimulus, and are asking for help. "We need to figure out only three things about each project," writes Amanda Michel, who heads up citizen journalism for ProPublica. "Whether a project has started, what company has been awarded the contract, and how many jobs have been created or saved by this project so far." The goal is to do a spot check to get a sense of the stimulus' overall impact. "When we’re done," writes Michel, "we’ll have a detailed look at a good sample of transportation projects nationwide." Participants can research projects from afar -- making a few phone calls, confirming what they find with a few web searches, and then reporting back to the Reporting Network. The motivation? Both civic mindedness and a bit of glory. "When we publish a story based on your research," blogs Michel, "you'll get generous credit." (Photo by Michael Kappel under a Creative Commons license)