In the US, local media has been on a steady decline over decades, with local newspapers either closing or being bought up by giant national chains and their local reporting gutted and replaced with general stories that are written for all their newspapers across the country. This means that important local issues do not get covered and local politicians and institutions do not get the close scrutiny they deserve because local media do not have the resources needed to do investigative reporting.

ProPublica has tried to combat this news vacuum by collaborating with local journalists to cover important stories and then using their national networks to provide these stories with greater publicity by having them appear in major media, thus increasing the impact. ProPublica can provide the local allies with the kind of resources needed for on-depth work. This approach has garnered them various awards, including the prestigious Pulitzer and Polk awards that are shared with the local collaborator, giving them recognition that they would not have otherwise had.

In a recent article, they discussed the various successes they have had, such as the one where they joined forces with The Connecticut Mirror to expose how Connecticut’s unique towing laws enabled towing companies to ripping off low-income people by quickly selling the cars they they towed.

Towing companies could start the process to sell people’s cars in as little as 15 days if the company deemed the car to be worth less than $1,500. The window was one of the shortest in the country, CT Mirror and ProPublica found, and meant many people who couldn’t afford to quickly pay the towing fees frequently lost their cars.

Through a long public records battle, complex data analysis by Sophie Chou and Haru Coryne, and innovative engagement reporting, the reporters discovered that tow truck companies were drastically undervaluing cars compared with the book value, allowing them to sell vehicles more quickly. They revealed that towing companies often held on to people’s belongings, including work equipment and mementos that had sentimental value, as leverage to get them to pay exorbitant fees. The companies were also not abiding by a law that requires them to hold onto the profits of sold cars and turn them over to the state so owners can claim the money — because the DMV never set up a system to collect it.

Within 24 hours of the first story, Connecticut DMV leadership announced it was reviewing towing practices, and lawmakers quickly proposed a bill overhauling the state’s century-old towing statutes. Nearly every issue Altimari and Monk wrote about was included in the bill, which passed in May 2025 with nearly unanimous bipartisan support. Towing companies must now give people warning before removing vehicles from apartment parking lots unless there’s a safety issue, accept credit cards for fees, let people claim their belongings and wait at least 30 days before selling cars. A DMV task force created by the legislature to study how towing companies handle profits has expanded its scope to other parts of the law, and just last week, the state Senate passed a bill that would create an online portal so Connecticut drivers can track their towed cars and require towing companies to consider the age of towed vehicles before they’re sold.

These local issues with towing abuses may seem minor for those looking at the major national news stories. But they can have devastating effects on the families affected.

The problems with being poor go well beyond not having enough money to meet one’s needs, as bad as that is. Being poor means that you are targeted for even greater exploitation because you are seen as being powerless to fight back. The towing issue is one example. Cash bail abuse is another.

The article goes on to discuss national exposes that they ran that led to results.

In “Rx Roulette,” reporters Debbie Cenziper, Megan Rose and Brandon Roberts uncovered how a secret group inside the FDA has quietly allowed dangerous drugmakers to continue selling generic medications from known substandard overseas factories that have been banned from the U.S. market.
…

As the Trump administration dismantled the nation’s long-standing foreign aid system, USAID, ProPublica reporters Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Brett Murphy documented the deadly global fallout and identified the Trump officials directly responsible in “The End of Aid.” They connected the resulting harm, including deaths of people who depended on the aid, to the U.S. policymakers and political appointees responsible for the cuts. The reporters then traveled to war-torn South Sudan to document the return of cholera after essential services stopped and to Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, where more than 300,000 people saw their food rations cut after the U.S. severed funding for the World Food Program.

I support many worthwhile independent news agencies with a monthly donation. ProPublica is one of the best.