Bill Dedman

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Bill Dedman
Born
George Polk Award
  • Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
    • WebsiteEmpty Mansions book

    Bill Dedman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative reporter and co-author of the biography of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark, Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune.[1][2]

    Often relying on public records as much as insider accounts, Dedman has reported and written influential investigative articles on racial discrimination by mortgage lenders and real estate agents,[3][4] racial profiling by police,[5] interrogation of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp,[6] and efforts to understand and prevent school shootings. His work includes one of the early examinations, in 1990, of the cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church of allegations of sexual abuse by a priest.[7][8][9]

    The Color of Money

    In 1989, Dedman received the

    mortgage lenders in middle-income black neighborhoods. The first stories in The Color of Money, published May 1–4, 1988, disclosed that Atlanta's banks and savings and loans, although they had made loans for years in even the poorest white neighborhoods of Atlanta, did not lend in middle-class or more affluent black neighborhoods. The focus moved to lenders across the nation with the January 1989 article, "Blacks turned down for home loans from S&Ls twice as often as whites."[10]

    As the Pulitzer committee wrote, Dedman's reporting "led to significant reforms."[11]

    In addition to raising awareness of

    data-driven journalism
    .

    Prompted by The Color of Money, Congress expanded the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act to provide more information to the public on the pattern of activity by all mortgage lenders. The group Investigative Reporters and Editors published a guide for journalists on using HMDA data to analyze lending patterns.[12]

    The U.S. Justice Department responded to The Color of Money by focusing greater attention on unequal lending, suing a large savings and loan association in United States v. Decatur Federal Savings & Loan. In the first major case alleging a pattern or practice of racial discrimination in mortgage lending in the United States, the federal government alleged that Decatur Federal applied stricter underwriting standards to African-American applicants than to white applicants and devised ways to avoid dealing with African-Americans. In a consent decree, the bank agreed to pay $1 million to compensate 48 victims of discrimination and to take a series of corrective measures to ensure compliance with federal fair lending laws.[13][14]

    Banking regulators increased pressure on lenders to comply with the guidelines of the Community Reinvestment Act, which encourages deposit-holding financial institutions to make loans throughout their service areas. For the first time, regulators in 1989 denied an application for a bank merger on the grounds of poor performance under the Community Reinvestment Act.[15]

    Along with responses from lawmakers and regulators, Atlanta's largest banks agreed to lend $65 million at low rates to moderate-income borrowers, particularly on the city's black Southside.[16]

    Life and career

    Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Dedman grew up in neighboring Red Bank, Tennessee. He started in journalism at age 16 as a copy boy at the Chattanooga Times.

    He attended

    The Daily Star-Journal in Warrensburg, Missouri
    .

    Dedman was a reporter for the

    The Associated Press. He has covered news and sports part-time for The New York Times, including the home run record chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998 and 1999.[17]

    From 2006 to 2014, Dedman was an investigative reporter for NBC News and NBCNews.com, formerly known as msnbc.com, uncovering stories including firefighter deaths from faulty equipment,[18] fraud in Pentagon efforts to identify war dead,[19] widespread failures to inspect highway bridges,[20][21] efforts by U.S. officials to hide the risk of earthquake damage to nuclear power plants,[22] hidden visitor logs at the Obama White House,[23] suppression of Hillary Rodham Clinton's college thesis at the request of the Clinton White House,[24][25] and journalists making campaign contributions.[26]

    In 2014 he joined Newsday, the daily newspaper on Long Island, N.Y., as a senior writer, reporting investigative stories in print, online, and on television for Newsday and its sister cable television channel, News 12 Long Island.[27] He was one of the four lead reporters on Newsday's 2019 undercover investigation of racial steering by real estate agents, Long Island Divided. The investigation revealed that Long Island’s dominant residential real estate brokerages help solidify racial segregation. Realtors frequently directed white customers toward white areas, while directing minority buyers toward more integrated neighborhoods. They also avoided doing any business in communities with large minority populations.[28]

    Although not a college graduate, Dedman taught advanced reporting as an adjunct lecturer at Boston University, Northwestern University, the University of Maryland, and Stony Brook University, and served for six years on the board of directors of the association Investigative Reporters and Editors.[29][30]

    Dedman's investigative reporting is analyzed at length in two books: Custodians of Conscience, which examines the techniques and moral implications of investigative reporting,[31] and the textbook The Ethical Journalist: Making Responsible Decisions in the Digital Age..[32]

    In addition to serious investigative reporting, Dedman has done quirky stories, including his account in The Washington Post of discovering the 1989 DC Prostitute Expulsion, when police officers attempted to force sex workers to march down 14th Street, past the Washington Monument and across the 14th Street Bridge toward Virginia.[33]

    Empty Mansions and Huguette Clark

    While working for NBC News as an investigative reporter, Dedman uncovered the case of the reclusive copper heiress

    The Today Show in 2010-2012.[34] Dedman reported the Clark mystery first in an online slideshow, a series of 47 photos with 2,788 accompanying words in captions. The slideshow attracted more than 75 million page views, more than any story in the website's history.[35]

    Dedman and Clark's cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr. (1936–2016), co-wrote the 2013 nonfiction book Empty Mansions about Clark and her father, the Gilded Age industrialist William A. Clark.[36][37]

    Published September 10, 2013, by Ballantine Books, Empty Mansions debuted at No. 4 on The New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover nonfiction, and was the No. 1 bestselling nonfiction e-book in America.[38][39][40] Empty Mansions has been published in translation in China, Brazil, and Italy, and in English in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, and Commonwealth countries.[41]

    The film rights to Empty Mansions were optioned by Fremantle, which is developing a TV series with HBO, director Joe Wright, and screenwriter Ido Fluk.[42] The book was optioned earlier by film and television director Ryan Murphy.[43]

    Awards

    Dedman has received the

    The Peabody Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, the George Polk Award in Journalism, the Sigma Delta Chi Award, an award from the News Leaders Association
    , and others.

    References

    1. ^ Taylor, Ihsan. "Best Sellers". The New York Times. Retrieved September 5, 2015.
    2. ISBN 9781573561112
      . Retrieved January 19, 2014.
    3. ^ a b "The Color of Money". powerreporting.com.
    4. ^ "Long Island Divided: A three-year Newsday investigation uncovered widespread evidence of unequal treatment by real estate agents on Long Island". newsday.com. November 17, 2019.
    5. ^ "Speed Trap - Boston Globe". www.boston.com.
    6. ^ "Can the '20th hijacker' of Sept. 11 stand trial?" (PDF). nbcnews.com. October 24, 2006.
    7. ^ Dedman, Bill; Stepp, Laura Sessions (April 29, 1990). "YEARS OF DEFIANCE ROOTS OF STALLINGS'S REBELLION" – via www.washingtonpost.com.
    8. ^ Stepp, Laura Sessions; Dedman, Bill (April 30, 1990). "CONCERNS ABOUT STALLINGS'S LIFESTYLE FUELED CONFLICT" – via www.washingtonpost.com.
    9. ^ Dedman, Bill; Stepp, Laura Sessions (May 1, 1990). "STALLINGS BUILDS A BLACK CHURCH FAR FROM ROME" – via www.washingtonpost.com.
    10. ^ "The Color of Money".
    11. ^ The Pulitzer Prizes
    12. ISBN 9781592138548
      .
    13. ^ "Federal Reserve Board HMDA Hearing | Stay Informed | K&L; Gates". Archived from the original on January 26, 2020. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
    14. ISBN 9780788136665
      .
    15. ^ Building healthy communities
    16. ^ "The Color of Money".
    17. ^ Dedman, Bill (September 7, 1998). "BASEBALL; Fan Snaring No. 62 Faces Big Tax Bite". The New York Times.
    18. ^ "Flaws in firefighters' last line of defense" (PDF). nbcnews.com. February 5, 2007.
    19. ^ "Pentagon unit held 'phony' ceremonies for MIAs, using planes that can't fly". nbcnews.com.
    20. ^ "Late inspections of bridges put travelers at risk" (PDF). nbcnews.com. January 30, 2008.
    21. ^ "Feds let states delay inspections of bad bridges" (PDF). nbcnews.com. January 31, 2008.
    22. ^ "U.S. Nuclear Agency Hid Concerns, Hailed Safety Record as Fukushima Melted". nbcnews.com. March 10, 2014.
    23. ^ "Obama blocks list of visitors to White House". nbcnews.com. June 16, 2009.
    24. ^ "Reading Hillary Rodham's Hidden Thesis: Clinton White House asked Wellesley to close off access" (PDF). Retrieved June 16, 2018.
    25. ^ "How the Clintons wrapped up Hillary's thesis: 'A stupid political decision,' says her former Wellesley pol-sci professor" (PDF). Retrieved June 16, 2018.
    26. ^ "Journalists dole out cash to politicians (quietly)" (PDF). nbcnews.com. June 21, 2007.
    27. ^ "Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Bill Dedman to join Newsday — Empty Mansions, the No. 1 bestselling biography of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark and her family". Emptymansionsbook.com. September 16, 2014. Retrieved September 5, 2015.
    28. ^ "Undercover investigation reveals evidence of unequal treatment by real estate agents". November 17, 2019.
    29. ^ Power Reporting
    30. ^ Past IRE Board Members
    31. ISBN 9780231106757
      – via Google Books.
    32. ISBN 9781444359640
      – via Google Books.
    33. ^ Dedman, Bill; Goldberg, Jeffrey (July 26, 1989). "MARCH CLEARS OUT PROSTITUTION ZONE" – via www.washingtonpost.com.
    34. ^ "Huguette Clark". NBC News. Retrieved June 16, 2018.
    35. ^ "Msnbc.com Uses Slide Show for In-Depth Narrative Story". Poynter.
    36. ISBN 9780345534521
      . Retrieved January 19, 2014.
    37. ^ "Co-author of 'Empty Mansions' dies at age 80". mtstandard.com. September 15, 2016.
    38. ^ "E-Book Nonfiction Books - Best Sellers - September 29, 2013 - The New York Times". The New York Times.
    39. ^ Investigations (September 3, 2015). "Huguette Clark book coming from Random House". NBC News. Retrieved September 3, 2015.
    40. ISBN 978-0345534521
      .
    41. ^ "Covers released for Chinese edition of Empty Mansions". emptymansionsbook.com. April 21, 2016.
    42. ^ "'Empty Mansions' Series Adaptation in the Works at HBO from Ido Fluk, Joe Wright & Fremantle". February 7, 2023.
    43. ^ Busch, Anita (March 14, 2014). "Ryan Murphy Options Rights To NY Times' Bestseller 'Empty Mansions'". Deadline. Retrieved January 28, 2016.

    External links

    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bill_Dedman&oldid=1217419927"