Free Journalism Training: Follow the Money: How to Investigate Opioid Settlement Spending in Your State

When: Friday, February 6, 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Location: Rutgers University, School of Communication and Information

Room SCI-222

4 Huntington St., New Brunswick, NJ

Registration: This training is free, but registration is required. Please direct questions about the program to Rachel Molenda, Associate Editor for Special Projects, 100 Days in Appalachia.

Description: In this one-day collaborative workshop, Reporting on Addiction and MuckRock will teach you how to tackle community-based reporting on the billions of dollars in opioid settlement funds flowing into your state, its counties, cities and tribal communities. This session will include information about your state’s settlement and distribution processes, tips on how to file FOIAs and collaborate on tracking the spending decisions, and insights from local experts on how these dollars should and should not be spent. 

Who Should Attend: Professional and student journalists in local, regional or statewide newsrooms, and editors willing to lead individual or collaborative newsrooms efforts on covering this topic.

Examples of Story Outcomes: Reporting on Addiction and MuckRock collaborated with West Virginia University’s Reed School of Media and 100 Days in Appalachia, a nonprofit regional newsroom, to tackle this type of reporting in West Virginia at the county level. The result was a four-part investigative series titled The Price of Recovery. This project will be a model for other states to complete similar projects, with support from RoA and MuckRock.

9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. – Arrivals, Coffee

10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. – Opioid Settlements 101

11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. – FOIA + Opioid Settlements

12-12:45 p.m. – Provided Lunch + General Q&A/Discussion 

12:45 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. – Tips for covering these stories in your state

1:45 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. – Community Speaker(s) Panel

2:45 p.m.- 3:00 p.m. – Next steps: How RoA and MuckRock Can Help