SPJ Detroit presents a virtual conversation with Beth LeBlanc and Chad Livengood on their project exposing government wrongdoing that is the subject of a criminal investigation.
Join us on Wednesday, Nov. 19, at 6 p.m.; register here.
In our first-ever Behind the Headlines program, we talk with Beth LeBlanc of The Detroit News and her editor on the project, Chad Livengood, about how they pieced together an investigation of the state’s practice of awarding secretive big-dollar earmarks and the dubious ways the money was spent.
We will learn how they went about it and what they learned as they pursued this three-year series, which recently won the inaugural SPJ Detroit A-Mark Prize for Investigative Journalism.
The discussion will be moderated by Anna Clark, SPJ Detroit board member and investigative reporter for ProPublica. There will be time for audience questions.
The A-Mark judges called LeBlanc’s reporting “an infuriating look at government spending” that is “a strong example of why journalists are needed, what news outlets are supposed to do.”
Panelists:
Beth LeBlanc is a politics and state government reporter for The Detroit News. Before starting with The News in 2018, Beth reported for the Lansing State Journal and Port Huron Times Herald. She is a 2012 graduate of the University of Michigan-Flint, where she obtained degrees in journalism and Spanish.
Chad Livengood is the politics editor and a columnist at The Detroit News, leading the newspaper’s politics team covering the presidential election, state politics in Lansing and Michigan’s congressional delegation in Washington. Chad was a political reporter in The News’ Lansing Bureau from 2012 through 2016 before becoming a reporter and columnist at Crain’s Detroit Business. He rejoined The News’ politics team in May 2022. His 20-year journalism career has included reporting for newspapers in Wilmington, Del., Springfield, Mo., Jackson, Saginaw and Adrian. Chad is a 2005 graduate of Central Michigan University.
Anna Clark is an investigative reporter with ProPublica, focusing on stories rooted in Michigan and the Midwest. She’s the author of “The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy” and editor of “A Detroit Anthology.” As a longtime self-supporting freelance reporter, she wrote for the Columbia Journalism Review, The New York Times, the Washington Post, Elle, Politico, Detroit Free Press, Bridge, Next City, Belt Magazine and other publications. She has been a Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan and a Fulbright fellow in creative writing in Kenya. Anna is a nonfiction faculty member with Alma College’s MFA program in creative writing. She lives in Detroit.
