New York, N.Y. (April 15, 2009)—ProPublica today announced the launch of a new, comprehensive resource section that will follow all facets of the financial crisis and the bailout. Titled “Eye on the Bailout,” the new feature includes:

• An easy to use searchable database that shows how all of the bailout money is being distributed;
• Profiles of all bailout recipients and the amount of funding each received;
• Color-coded graphics that visually show the impact of the bailout on different industries;
• Running analysis, reporting and commentary on the most recent bailout activities;
• Daily links to the best bailout reporting around the Web;
• A timeline of the major events in the financial crisis;
• Plain language descriptions and graphical breakdowns of the Treasury Department’s bailout programs without confusing government acronyms;
• A map that charts all of the bailed out banks; and
• A forthcoming widget which will let other websites share the latest information on bailouts.

“In the process of reporting on the bailout, we realized one of the main challenges was giving readers a clear picture of how the Treasury is spending the taxpayer’s money,” said ProPublica reporter Paul Kiel, who is heading up the “Eye on the Bailout” feature. “That’s the main goal of the resources we’ve created. And the blog will add to their understanding of the crisis because that’s where we’ll explain the latest bailout developments, in addition to our ongoing reporting on the financial crisis.”

ProPublica’s Director of Online Development Scott Klein added, “The government’s response to this crisis is one of the major news stories of our day and our staff has been on it from day one. When we took a step back and looked at all the information we had collected, we saw a way for us to provide context and clarity in a way that others weren’t. Eye on the Bailout will help us fulfill our mission by serving as a watchdog for the trillions of dollars that are being spent on the bailout and by sharing content and information that others can use.”

When the bank bailout funds were first being distributed, ProPublica created a chart of all the institutions that received funds and it quickly became one of the most viewed, linked to and quoted resources on the ProPublica Web site. That chart will now be folded into the “Eye on the Bailout” feature. The new bailout section can be viewed here—http://propublica.org/bailout.

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. With the largest news staff in American journalism devoted solely to investigative reporting, ProPublica is supported entirely by philanthropy and provides the articles it produces, free of charge, both through its own web site and to leading news organizations selected with an eye toward maximizing the impact of each article.

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