The Baltimore Banner, a nonprofit, multi-platform news operation serving Greater Baltimore and Maryland, in collaboration with The New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship and Stanford’s Big Local News, spearheaded a national conversation about America’s opioid epidemic. Today, newsrooms simultaneously published reports, made possible by The Banner’s one-of-a-kind dataset, on the overdose crisis in their region alongside The Upshot’s wider look at overdoses across the nation. This new analysis stems from The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship initial investigation that exposed how Baltimore’s opioid crisis has disproportionately affected one group in particular: Black men currently in their mid-50s to early 70s.
The most recent story in The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship series published today. The organizations co-published a piece by Banner reporters Alissa Zhu, Jessica Gallagher and Meredith Cohn about PHA Healthcare, a company making millions in drug treatment funding that has faced criticism for running ineffective and unsafe programs that in some cases have worsened addiction.
The local media partners that published reports about the opioid crisis in their regions include:
- The San Francisco Standard
- The Chicago Sun-Times
- The Philadelphia Inquirer
- The 51st (Washington D.C.)
- The Star-Ledger/Nj.com
- PublicSource (Pittsburgh)
The Boston Globe, Wisconsin Watch and Free Press Indiana/Mirror Indy will publish reports in January.
“Today’s reports underscore the importance of collaboration between local and national media to inform neighborhoods of important issues affecting their communities,” said Baltimore Banner Editor in Chief Kimi Yoshino. “This collaborative investigation highlights the power of data-driven journalism to drive real solutions. The Banner is immensely proud that we could share our one-of-a-kind dataset with other local newsrooms to make this reporting possible across the country.”
Former Baltimore Banner data reporter Nick Thieme was able to analyze overdose patterns in every large county in America by combining academic data on U.S. deaths with population counts by age and gender.
The result is a dataset that allowed The Banner team to calculate death rates by single-year of age, race, sex, and location, for any cause of death, for any county in the United States from 1969 to 2022. This is likely the only dataset of this kind in existence. Big Local News and the Stanford Digital Repository are hosting an aggregated (by county) and a suppressed version of the underlying data and a guide on how to use the data for further reporting.
To put Baltimore in the context of all other U.S. counties, The Banner team analyzed every other county nationwide. The partnership project was created to share this analysis with other local news organizations across the United States.
“The Banner’s collaboration with The New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship, Big Local News, and nonprofit newsrooms across the country is a testament to the power of our collective efforts to illustrate the devastating impact of the opioid crisis in cities across America. The initial investigation into the opioid epidemic in Baltimore revealed troubling and underreported patterns. By sharing our groundbreaking dataset with partners nationwide, we’re connecting the dots between cities and regions that have been deeply affected by the opioid epidemic,” said Baltimore Banner CEO Bob Cohn.
“We’re extremely happy to have been part of this extraordinary national reporting project. Being given the data that The Baltimore Banner developed made it possible to tell Chicago readers an important story about a long-term, societal problem. And, as a result of this reporting, officials are now talking about looking for ways to help this generation of Black men who for decades have been at high risk for dying from opioid overdoses,” said Chicago Sun-Times Deputy Managing Editor, Enterprise and Investigations, Paul Saltzman.
The initial Baltimore opioid crisis story was one of the first projects conceived when The Banner launched in 2022. Baltimore and its residents have long been focused on the city’s homicide rate even though local officials had pointed out that more people died of overdose each year than of homicide. Yet, no news organization in Maryland had done a deep dive on the problem in the last 20 years.
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About The Baltimore Banner
The Baltimore Banner is a multi-platform news operation serving Greater Baltimore and Maryland. Its mission is to be the most essential and compelling news resource for the people of Maryland. We inform, strengthen, and inspire the communities we serve by providing trusted journalism that tells people’s stories, holds leaders accountable, and delivers a wide range of local news that readers and partners are eager to support. The Banner has built a nonprofit digital news operation that allows people to access its content across multiple platforms. Its coverage includes topics ranging from politics and criminal justice, to sports, education, and entertainment. To learn more, visit: www.TheBaltimoreBanner.com.
