Major IRP Collaboration on death investigations airs on FRONTLINE and NPR

Every day, nearly 7,000 people die in America. And when these deaths happen suddenly, or under suspicious circumstances, we assume there will be a thorough investigation, just like we see on CSI. But the reality is very different.

In over 1,300 counties across America, elected coroners, many with no medical or scientific background, are in charge of death investigations. Nationwide there is a severe shortage of competent forensic pathologists to do autopsies. The rate of autopsies – the gold standard of death investigation – has plummeted over the decades. As a result, murderers go free and innocent people go to jail.

Six UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism students worked on the film: Leah Bartos, Heather Duthie, Mary Flynn, Kati Hollis, Brooke Minters and Japhet Weeks. Five alums worked on the project: co-producer Andres Cediel (’04), fact checker Jonathan Jones (’06), reporter Sabrina Shankman (’10) and director of photography Zachary Stauffer (’08). Former IRP Post-graduate Fellows Carrie Lozano (’05) and Ryan Gabrielson provided reporting. Professor Lowell Bergman was the correspondent. Alex Brewer, the 2010 Isaacs-Wright Carleton College intern to the IRP contributed research.

Lozano is using “Post Mortem” as a case study for the IRP’s “Collective Work,” an innovative project funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to help identify best practices for the evolving realm of multiplatform, collaborative investigative reporting.

Web site: www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/post-mortem/

NPR Stories: http://www.npr.org/series/133208980/post-mortem-death-investigation-in-america

ProPublica Stories: http://www.propublica.org/topic/post-mortem/

California Watch Stories: http://californiawatch.org/postmortem

Listen to Professor Bergman discussing the collaboration on NPR’s “Talk of The Nation” February 8, 2011: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/08/133595702/chronic-dysfunction-found-in-death-investigations