The mission of The American Independent News Network is to investigate and disseminate news that impacts public debate and advances the common good. This is a qualitative measure of success, and we call this “impact journalism.”™ AINN’s reporting has generated two primary kinds of impact:

1. Pressure: A third party publicly pressures the subject of our reporting, based on the information AINN exclusively reveals, to accept responsibility, reform its ways, or otherwise take action.

2. Results: A subject of our reporting takes action to address the problems revealed by our coverage. It’s important that the action have political or policy consequences that address the underlying causes of a problem, rather than superficial symptoms.

Impact stories tend to share certain topics and angles that create a general profile of a successful story. These qualities include, but are not limited to:

1. It’s about a public policy or proposal, or a person or organization seeking or holding a position of public trust;
2. If it’s about a policy or a bill or a certain practice, the reporting brings to light how the practice fails to meet, or patently contravenes, the common good;
3. If it’s about a person or an organization, the reporting identifies actions that either raise serious questions about their fitness or ability to hold a position of public trust or demonstrates that they have already breached the public trust;

• This can include holding figures accountable for their professional affiliations, as well as their statements.
• It also can include scrutinizing the practices of private entities such as government contractors.

4. It may also be about an organization or person attempting to influence public opinion through covert means or overt means.
5.It creates consequences that meet the operating definition of impact.

Quarterly Reports

Each quarter, AINN compiles a report detailing the impacts achieved across the network.
Q2 2011 Impact Report

AINN Quarter 1, 2011 Impact Report

AINN Quarter 4, 2010 Impact Report

AINN Quarter 3, 2010 Impact Report

AINN Quarter 2, 2010 Impact Report

AINN Quarter 1, 2010 Impact Report

Charting Impact Goals

AINN sets network-wide goals for impact each quarter.  The following charts illustrates the number of impacts achieved since Quarter 1, 2009:

Most Recent Biweekly Report

Twice each month, David S. Bennahum, CEO of AINN, sends an email to supporters sharing the highlights across the network in the previous two weeks.

The following is the most recent email sent:

October 6, 2011

From: David S. Bennahum

Re: AINN heats up election season coverage; cited in legislation introduced by California Rep. Barbara Lee

As we begin the last quarter of 2011, AINN and its network are heating up coverage as we roll forcefully towards election season. Two highlights from the past week:

• October is 2012 nomination calendar month and The Iowa Independent is in on the ground floor. They began by noting that Colorado Republicans had chosen to move their non-binding contest to the day after the currently scheduled Feb. 6, 2012 caucuses, and picked up on national reports that Florida was poised to also jump ahead of the parties’ official calendar, but despite calls of warning from officials in the states sanctioned to begin the process, Florida officially tilted the process by moving to Jan. 31. The Iowa team also noted that the only 2012 candidates willing to stand by the official calendar is former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who pledged to support Iowa and New Hampshire. The action will continue for the next few weeks until Iowa Republicans and New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner make their date decisions public.

• Reporter Teddy Wilson provided perspective for the controversy over in-state college tuition for undocumented immigrants in Texas, a 2001 law that has been dogging Rick Perry on the campaign trail. Perry has defended his support for the law by pointing out that all but four legislators in the state supported the law in 2001. Not only is that true, Wilson showed, but the law was supported at the time by some of the toughest immigration foes in the Texas Legislature today.

And from The Michigan Messenger, an impact: Todd Heywood’s continuous coverage of HIV/AIDS issues have been cited by U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA9) in a bill to use the federal government’s funding leverage to pressure states to eliminate laws that criminalize behavior by HIV-positive individuals in a discriminatory manner. Lee has been circulating the bill among her fellow legislators and other states, highlighting Heywood’s reporting on bio-terrorism charges against an HIV-positive man in Macomb County who allegedly bit a neighbor during a fight among several of his other pieces in this same category.As always, please be in touch with any feedback and/or questions.

Best,

David

(212) 838-1335

AMERICAN INDEPENDENT

In 2008, the Palmetto Family Council was awarded $3 million in federal funding to implement its abstinence-only curriculum in South Carolina school through the Bush administration’s Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) program. Palmetto Family Council eventually received only $1.2 million — given CBAE was discontinued by the Obama administration — but reporter Sofia Resnick reported that the funds went to creating a website that relied heavily on the state’s religious community and a pre-existing sex-education curriculum produced by a controversial nonprofit that was simultaneously receiving support from CBAE for other projects. Using public grant documents, Resnick documented how the money was spent: the largest chunk going to a fellow CBAE recipient, Heritage Community Services, for the curriculum. The group was known for its message that abstinence is the only reliable way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually-transmitted infections, and for receiving most of its funding from the federal government. Another chunk went to what CBAE requires to be an independent third-party evaluator of the curriculum. Resnick found that the evaluator, a firm called Research & Evaluation, was selected for this role even though it was closely affiliated with Heritage Community Services.

Resnick also reported that anti-choice media group Heroic Media is in violation of Google’s policy by concocting a “doorway page,” freepreghelpline.com, to funnel women seeking counsel on reproductive health and/or abortion services to a national network of crisis pregnancy centers. Heroic outlines its new strategy to game Google’s search engine service saying it “launched a new landing page at www.freepreghelpline.com to optimize reporting on just how many women are connected with life-affirming resources.” Freepreghelpline.com is a single-page site that takes viewers to an “Option Line” page that lists crisis pregnancy centers across the country. But the doorway pages violate Google’s stated policy, a spokesperson for the web giant confirmed, saying, “Sites sometimes violate Google’s webmaster guidelines in an attempt to game our algorithms and trick their way to the top of our results. … Our webmaster guidelines are designed to protect users, and when a site violates them, we reserve the right to take action to preserve a good user experience.”

Mikhail Zinshteyn rounded up opinions on what’s next for education reform after the Obama administration’s tweaking of No Child Left Behind. The consensus is that allowing states to apply for waivers to the law is a smart move by the administration, though much cynicism remains among the experts. One warned of states’ coming interactions with the federal government: “[B]e careful negotiating with desperate people.”

COLORADO

Reporter John Tomasic brought comprehensive coverage to the controversies surrounding embattled Secretary of State Scott Gessler. First, Pueblo County Clerk Gilbert Ortiz wrote a letter to Gessler, leaked to The Colorado Independent, seeking an express prohibition “in writing ” on sending ballots to soldiers overseas who are legally registered but inactive voters. Earlier in the week, Gessler had taken the unprecedented step of filing suit against Denver County to prevent the county clerk from mailing ballots to inactive voters. “I want it on the record because this goes against everything I want to do as clerk,” the clerk told The Colorado Independent. Tomasic then reported that two members of Congress, U.S. Reps. Charles Gonzalez of Texas and Robert Brady of Pennsylvania, requested a DOJ investigation into whether Gessler was attempting to suppress voting in Colorado. “What Secretary Gessler suggests is likely to disenfranchise eligible voters and should be condemned therefore,” the wrote. Gessler’s office largely dismissed the letter, calling it political gamesmanship. From there Tomasic followed the exchange back in Pueblo County, where Gessler followed through on his order by sending a letter to Ortiz instructing him not to mail ballots to soldiers on the inactive list, and after seeking legal advice, Ortiz decided to comply and not send ballots to inactive voters.

On another subject, Tomasic reported on a legal back and forth between Gessler and both Colorado Ethics Watch and Common Cause on the question of whether issues committees in Colorado should have to comply with campaign finance laws. Since the spring, Gessler has contended that state rules requiring them to do so are unenforceable and should be tossed. In a brief filed with a Denver District court, however, Ethics Watch argued Gessler is rewriting the law instead of merely setting forth rules directing citizens on how to abide it.

FLORIDA

Virginia Chamlee landed two high-profile media appearances, generating wide exposure to a pair of stories she has been covering: the allegations of campaign corruption against Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota, and the massive political influence of Big Sugar. In an interview with WMNF’s Rob Lorei, Chamlee discussed her coverage of Buchanan; during the broadcast, Lorei played a three-minute voicemail from the congressman that Chamlee had exclusively obtained. Later, in an interview with Free Speech TV’s Marcy Miranda, Chamlee spoke about her recent exposé on political influence-buying by Florida’s sugar industry, as well as the piece’s relationship to The American Independent’s Campaign Cash series, as part of a collaborative investigative effort to expose the influence of corporate money on the political process by members of The Media Consortium, in partnership with the We the People Campaign.

Ashley Lopez attended a conference for Care Net, the nationwide network of crisis pregnancy centers, and offered a handful of exclusive stories about what transpired. In one, she reported on a keynote speech by anti-choice activist Abby Johnson, who told the audience that Planned Parenthood is “working with the devil” and that attendees would eventually help win the “war” against the right to choose. In another piece, Lopez followed up on reporting by The American Independent that examined how anti-abortion groups are creating dummy websites to mislead women using Google to find information about abortion. Finally, she interviewed a lawyer from Americans United for Life, the anti-choice group whose 2011 report about Planned Parenthood has now led to a congressional investigation by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Ocala. The Americans United representative told Lopez that, contrary to public claims by some that the investigation is merely an effort to provide oversight of federal spending, the investigation is indeed part of a broader campaign to end the right to choose in the United States.

IOWA

October is 2012 nomination calendar month and The Iowa Independent is in on the ground floor. They began two weeks ago by noting that Colorado Republicans had chosen to move their non-binding contest to the day after the currently scheduled Feb. 6, 2012 caucuses, and picked up on national reports that Florida was poised to also jump ahead of the parties’ official calendar. Despite calls of warning from officials in the states sanctioned to begin the process, Florida officially tilted the process by moving to Jan. 31. The Iowa Independent offered comments of disgust from the Iowa GOP chairman and Nevada state officials, and also noted that the only 2012 candidates willing to stand by the official calendar is former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who pledged to support Iowa and New Hampshire. The action will continue for the next few weeks until Iowa Republicans and New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner make their date decisions public.

Reporter Sofia Resnick continued to build on earlier Iowa Independent reporting of the Iowa Family Policy Center this week, noting that many ethical questions remain as to when and how the religious conservative organization used taxpayer money in its controversial marriage counseling program.

Shorty after The Iowa Independent began reporting on IFPC’s Marriage Matters program, IFPC announced it had agreed in September 2009 to stop accepting money from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services for the counseling operation. Marriage Matters was funded by federal government dollars while the organization carried out a campaign to oust three state Supreme Court judges whose 2009 ruling legalized civil marriage for Iowa gays and lesbians. But according to documents obtained by Resnick, IFPC President Chuck Hurley was asked in August 2010 to submit a letter explaining the group’s reasoning for rejecting the funds, and IFPC never filed the required documentation. Therefore, according to the FOIA office of the federal granting agency, IFPC’s grant file is still open.

IFPC declined to explain to Resnick why it refused to file the proper documentation, including a final financial status report and a final progress report, to end the grant. In addition, Resnick reported that one of IFPC’s paid employees, Matt Reisetter — who was running the Northeast Iowa Marriage Alliance (NIMA) for the Marriage Matters program and is now the Family Leader’s director of development — was running for state political office and working for Gov. Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign at the same time as the marriage project. It was all news that not even Iowa’s conservative blogosphere could ignore, and the headline led at the top of The Bean Walker’s aggregator page at the end of the week and throughout the weekend.

MICHIGAN

IMPACT: Todd Heywood reported that U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee of California has officially submitted a bill to use the federal government’s funding leverage to pressure states to eliminate laws that criminalize behavior by HIV-positive individuals in a discriminatory manner. Lee has been circulating the bill among her fellow legislators, specifically citing Heywood’s work on HIV criminalization in Michigan and other states, particularly the use of bio-terrorism charges against an HIV-positive man in Macomb County who allegedlly bit a neighbor during a fight. Michigan Reps. Hansen Clarke and John Conyers of Detroit have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill. Equality Michigan joined many groups in praising the legislation, saying, “Congresswoman Lee’s legislation is an important and urgently needed shift toward demanding equal protection and intelligent public health for all Americans.”

Heywood reported on another threat against an elected official by a prison inmate in Michigan. Just days after it was announced that Rep. Barb Byrum had been targeted for kidnapping by an inmate, the Messenger was the first to report that Lansing City Councilwoman Carol Wood had also recently been targeted by a serial killer already serving time in a Michigan prison whose victims included Wood’s mother. The inmate had tried to hire family members to kill Wood, but another inmate informed prison officials of the plot and it was foiled. The county prosecutor has decided not to bring additional charges against the man.

MINNESOTA

If everything goes according to plan, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) will reopen a private prison in Appleton, Minn. The Minnesota Independent’s Jon Collins looked into CCA’s political strategies, which range from pumping into candidates’ coffers to pushing legislation, via secretive groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), designed to put more people in prison for longer sentences. The payoff for all this political activity has been explosive growth, with the company doubling its revenue in the last decade, Collins reported.

Andy Birkey dug into the last five years of spending in Minnesota’s fight over banning marriage for gay and lesbian couples. Despite claims of poverty by opponents, Birkey found that they had massively outspent LGBT advocates in the run-up to the bill’s passage. Minnesota will vote on whether to make marriage for gay and lesbian couples unconstitutional in November.

TEXAS

In a rare interview with evangelical organizer David Lane, reporter Mary Tuma confirmed that the Mississippi-based American Family Association is funding a series of pastor gatherings this fall, featuring presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and possibly Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Lane said his cause to “restore America to its Christian heritage” has been made more difficult by the nation’s descent into secularism over the last 60 years and that he’s even more concerned by “secularist” judges than by the politicians that normally draw more public attention. “We have documented proof this nation was founded by Christians, but they have taken prayer, the Bible, Jesus and the Ten Commandments off the wall,” he said.

Editor Patrick Michels reported on a class-action federal suit brought on behalf of dozens of workers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan against some of the nation’s largest military contractors and insurance giants. The workers claim they’ve been illegally fired after sustaining injuries on the job in a war zone and have been deprived of the insurance benefits they’re guaranteed by law. While courts are crowded with similar individual cases, it’s likely the first class-action suit like this since the war in Iraq began.

Reporter Teddy Wilson provided perspective for the controversy over in-state college tuition for undocumented immigrants in Texas, a 2001 law that has been dogging Rick Perry on the campaign trail. Perry has defended his support for the law by pointing out that all but four legislators in the state supported the law in 2001. Not only is that true, Wilson showed, but the law was supported at the time by some of the t