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Our Year in Visual Journalism

This year, ProPublica investigated racial disparities in the child welfare system, the “wild west” of unregulated prenatal tests, junk science like 911 call analysis and more. Here are the best visuals from our investigations in 2022.

by ProPublica’s Visual Storytelling Department

Creative Commons

We seek to render the invisible visible and bring clarity to the intentionally complex.

We strive to capture the experiences of those hurt by broken systems and the dignity they display in the face of the most difficult circumstances.

We do this with photos, illustrations, animations, maps, graphics, videos, audio and more, so that in addition to reading, you can hear, see, grasp and, most importantly, feel the stories ProPublica tells.

Thank you for your time and engagement, and for the opportunity you’ve given us to illuminate life in 2022. Please enjoy this collection of our best visual work of the year.

Yoshi Sodeoka for "Why It’s Hard to Sanction Ransomware Groups"
Greg Kahn for "They Called 911 for Help. Police and Prosecutors Used a New Junk Science to Decide They Were Liars."
Sarah Blesener for "They Trusted Their Prenatal Test. They Didn’t Know the Industry Is an Unregulated 'Wild West.'"
Stephanie Mei Ling for "For Black Families in Phoenix, Child Welfare Investigations Are a Constant Threat"
Mauricio Rodríguez Pons and Anna Donlan for "The Night Raids"
Devin Yalkin for "The Navy Accused Him of Arson. Its Own Investigation Showed Widespread Safety Failures."
Matt Huynh for "Shielded From Public View, Misconduct by Corrections Staff in Illinois Prisons Received Scant Discipline"
Shane Loeffler for "The Tragedy of North Birmingham"
Matthew Kam for "How Your Shadow Credit Score Could Decide Whether You Get an Apartment" and "When Private Equity Becomes Your Landlord"
Akasha Rabut for "She Warned the Grain Elevator Would Disrupt Sacred Black History. They Deleted Her Findings."
Alex Bandoni for "The Tax Scam that Won’t Die,"
Vanessa Saba for "The Invisible Hand of Steve Twist"
Erik Carter for "Inside the Government Fiasco That Nearly Closed the U.S. Air System"
Kathleen Flynn for "Air Monitors Alone Won’t Save Communities From Toxic Industrial Air Pollution,"
Joseph Ross for "The Polluter Just Got a Million-Dollar Fine. That Won’t Cure This Woman’s Rare Cancer."
Bryan Tarnowski for "Louisiana Limits Solitary Confinement for Youth"
Anuj Shrestha for "These Children Fled Afghanistan Without Their Families. They’re Stuck in U.S. Custody.,"
Hokyoung Kim for "Kidney Failure, Emergency Rooms and Medical Debt. The Unseen Costs of Food Poisoning."
Lucas Waldron for "She Wanted an Abortion. A Judge Said She Wasn’t Mature Enough to Decide."
September Dawn Bottoms for "What Happened to Rezwan"
Mark Harris, Lena Groeger and Andrea Wise "Hell at Abbey Gate: Chaos, Confusion and Death in the Final Days of the War in Afghanistan"
Lucas Waldron for "Hell at Abbey Gate: Chaos, Confusion and Death in the Final Days of the War in Afghanistan"
Dominic Bodden for "A Push to Remove LGBTQ Books in One County Could Signal Rising Partisanship on School Boards" and Lisa Larson-Walker for "A Police Car Hit a Kid on Halloween 2019. The NYPD Is Quashing a Move to Punish the Officer."
Ed Ou and Mauricio Rodríguez Pons for "A Uranium Ghost Town in the Making: John Boomer Song"
Tony Luong for "How Foreign Private Equity Hooked New England’s Fishing Industry" and "U.S. Senators Demand Federal Scrutiny of Private Equity’s Incursion Into Fishing"
Katie Campbell and Tony Schick for "Salmon People: A Native Fishing Family’s Fight to Preserve a Way of Life"
Joan Wong for "Twice Accused of Sexual Assault, He Was Let Go by Army Commanders. He Attacked Again.," "He Was Accused of Sexual Assault, She of Using Drugs. The Military Dealt With Them Very Differently.," "How We Tracked Pretrial Confinement Rates in the U.S. Army and Help ProPublica and The Texas Tribune Report on the Military Justice System"
Daniel Liévano for "San Francisco Rations Housing by Scoring Homeless People’s Trauma. By Design, Most Fail to Qualify.,"
Lisa Larson-Walker for "How a Billionaire’s 'Attack Philanthropy' Secretly Funded Climate Denialism and Right-Wing Causes"
Holly Stapleton for "What’s Holding Up Vaccinations for Children Under 5?,"
Emiliano Ponzi for "St. Louis’ Murder Total Has Fallen, but Some Killings Went Uncounted"
Alex Bandoni and Anna Donlan for "The Landlord & the Tenant"
Laila Milevski for "The Price Kids Pay: Schools and Police Punish Students With Costly Tickets for Minor Misbehavior"
Stephanie Mei-Ling for "After a Stillbirth, an Autopsy Can Provide Answers. Too Few of Them Are Being Performed." and Whitney Curtis for "The State Took His Kids Three Times. And Three Times It Gave Them Back."
Kitra Cahana for "These Foster Kids Need Mental Health Care. New Mexico Is Putting Them in Homeless Shelters"
Liz Moughon and Gerardo Del Valle for "Residents at White Mesa Protest the Local Uranium Mill"
Haisam Hussein for "The U.S. Never Banned Asbestos. These Workers Are Paying the Price."
Haisam Hussein for "The U.S. Never Banned Asbestos. These Workers Are Paying the Price."
Mauricio Rodriguez Pons for "What Is Radon? The Radioactive Gas Is Found in Homes Across the Country"
Rich-Joseph Facun for "The U.S. Never Banned Asbestos. These Workers Are Paying the Price."
Matthieu Bourel for "Shackles and Solitary: Inside Louisiana’s Harshest Juvenile Lockup"
Anson Chan for "How the FCC Shields Cellphone Companies From Safety Concerns"
Kate Copeland for "The City Where Investigations of Police Take So Long, Officers Kill Again Before Reviews Are Done"
Hokyoung Kim for "Two Cities Took Different Approaches to Pandemic Court Closures. They Got Different Results."
Stephanie Mei-Ling for "Police Need Warrants to Search Homes. Child Welfare Agents Almost Never Get One."
Gerardo del Valle for "These 20 Churches Supported Political Candidates. Experts Say They Violated Federal Law."
Anonymous illustrator for "How a Chinese American Gangster Transformed Money Laundering for Drug Cartels"
David Kasnic for "What One Photographer Captured in Wisconsin’s Changing Election Climate"
Ash Ngu for "America’s Highest Earners and Their Taxes Revealed"
Matt Rota for "The Global Threat of Rogue Diplomacy"
Matt Rota and Henrike Lendowski for "Shadow Diplomats Have Posed a Threat for Decades. The World’s Governments Looked the Other Way."
Lucas Waldron for "For Black Families in Phoenix, Child Welfare Investigations Are a Constant Threat"
Leland Foster for "Building the 'Big Lie': Inside the Creation of Trump’s Stolen Election Myth"
Michael Mapes for "Inside Google’s Quest to Digitize Troops’ Tissue Samples"
Timo Lenzen for "A Return to Robo-Signing: JPMorgan Chase Has Unleashed a Lawsuit Blitz on Credit Card Customers"
Lisa Larson-Walker for "Rent Going Up? One Company’s Algorithm Could Be Why."
Jinhwa Jang for "Porn, Piracy, Fraud: What Lurks Inside Google’s Black Box Ad Empire"
Lucas Waldron and Laila Milevski for "The Hidden Fees Making Your Bananas, and Everything Else, Cost More"
Noah Jodice for "How to Vote: A Quick and Easy Guide"
Mauricio Rodríguez Pons for "The Fight Against an Age-Old Effort to Block Americans From Voting"
Bianca Bagnarelli for "In San Francisco, Hundreds of Homes for the Homeless Sit Vacant"
Kitra Cahana for "'The Human Psyche Was Not Built for This'"
Mauricio Rodríguez Pons and Lena Groeger for "How Jessica Logan’s Call for Help Became Evidence Against Her"
Jeff Frankl and Lucas Waldron for "How Jessica Logan’s Call for Help Became Evidence Against Her"
Christopher Smith for "Developers Found Graves in the Virginia Woods. Authorities Then Helped Erase the Historic Black Cemetery."
Dadu Shin for "The Leader of New York’s 'City of the Dead' Cashes In. Again."
Tara Anand for "Human Trafficking’s Newest Abuse: Forcing Victims Into Cyberscamming"
Nash Weerasekera for "St. Louis Can Banish People From Entire Neighborhoods. Police Can Arrest Them if They Come Back."
Rebecca Mock for "Lights Out: Profitable Utility Company Shut Off Electricity to Homes Hundreds of Thousands of Times"
Kristina Barker for "They Trusted Their Prenatal Test. They Didn’t Know the Industry Is an Unregulated 'Wild West.'"
Holly Warburton for "They Trusted Their Prenatal Test. They Didn’t Know the Industry Is an Unregulated 'Wild West.'"
Braylen Dion for "The CDC Scientist Who Couldn’t Get Monkeypox Treatment"
Eli Imadali for "'Another Place to Warehouse People': The State Where Halfway Houses Are a Revolving Door to Prison"

With gratitude,

Visual Storytelling Department

  • Boyzell Hosey, senior editor, visual storytelling

Visuals

  • Lisa Larson-Walker, art director
  • Andrea Wise, visuals editor
  • Alex Bandoni, visuals editor
  • Jillian Kumagai, visuals editor
  • Max Herman, temporary visuals editor

Graphics

  • Lena V. Groeger, graphics director
  • Lucas Waldron, graphics editor
  • Anna Donlan, interactive story designer

Video

  • Almudena Toral, executive producer
  • Nadia Sussman, video journalist
  • Katie Campbell, video journalist
  • Mauricio Rodríguez Pons, video journalist
  • Joe Singer, video editor
  • Gerardo del Valle, video and film fellow
  • Liz Moughon, video and film fellow

Design & Product

  • David Sleight, senior director, design & product
  • Allen Tan, editorial experience designer
  • Jeff Frankl, editorial experience designer
  • Mike Tigas, editorial systems engineer
  • Frank Sharpe, senior product developer
  • Jaya Subrahmanyan, product developer
  • Emenike Godfreey-Igwe, associate product developer

News Apps

  • Ken Schwencke, news apps editor
  • Al Shaw, deputy editor
  • Ash Ngu, news apps developer
  • Andrea Suozzo, news apps developer
  • Ruth Talbot, news apps developer
  • Alec Glassford, news apps developer
  • Nat Lash, news apps developer
  • Sergio Hernandez, news apps developer

Additional design and development by Anna Donlan.

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