TMC: Thirty Miles of Corruption

The reporting team  and Pulitzer Prize Winners for Public Service, led by Ruben Vives and Jeff Gottlieb, was hailed for “Breach of Faith,” which exposed the deep seated  municipal corruption in the city of Bell, California, and displayed the  excessive compensation packages received by city officials.  In the Los Angeles suburb of 36,000, city manager Robert Rizzo had received annual compensation of $1.5 million in salary and benefits, the reports showed, with similar pay packages going to the police chief and other city administrators.  The Times reporters uncovered the malfeasance while investigating a separate story in the neighboring city of Maywood.  Vives and Gottlieb described the story behind the coverage in an August event at USC Annenberg. (Watch the video here).  In the official award citation, the panel of judges called the team’s work “the finest tradition of shoe-leather investigative reporting,” and hailed the group for their service to the public.  Eight former and current city officials have been arrested in the aftermath of the scandal, and the state controller’s office has ordered municipalities around California to post the salaries of officials on the Internet.  On a side note Jeff Gottleib was a reporter for the Riverside Press Enterprise for about thirty years. We can sure use him now.

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