Construction has begun on many “shovel ready” projects, but the size and scale of the Federal stimulus package is too big for any one reporter or newspaper to investigate. Now, local citizens are being asked to go online and report on the progress of local construction projects, to collectively monitor how our tax dollars are being used.
Just three months ago, Congress appropriated $27 billion to repair America’s roads and bridges. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is expected to create over 1.8 million jobs, at thousands of construction sites around the country.
Will the plan work? At www.shovelwatch.org, local observers can find a list of projects in their area and then keep their eyes open, to report such things as which ones have actually started, what contractors are involved, how many people are being hired, what they are being paid, how is the project progressing and anything else they might discover. Participants can even get local reporting assignments.
The project is the brainchild of Pro Publica, an independent, non-profit newsroom led by Paul Steiger, the former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. Recognizing that investigating reporting is at risk in the financially troubled news industry, Pro Publica looks for new models “to carry forward some of the great work of journalism in the public interest that is such an integral part of self-government, and thus an important bulwark of our democracy”. The Shovel Watch project is a great example of how the public can be harnessed to carry on the work of investigation.
May 14th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Shovel Ready-The Government loans money to the Banks, browbeats the Banks into submission on the Chrysler and and GM Bankruptcies so that they give up their Secured position in favor of unions which under US law would have a position junior to the banks. Result= the Banks take the loss and the government has, in effect , passed money to the Unions. This is money that the Banks must repay to the Government. This administration has no reguard for the law-only sociar engineering.