{
  "id": "1996-january-putting-the-heat-on-pensions",
  "slug": "1996-january-putting-the-heat-on-pensions",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1996-january-putting-the-heat-on-pensions.html",
  "year": 1996,
  "month": "January",
  "monthNum": 1,
  "headline": "Putting the heat on pensions",
  "kicker": "",
  "author_name": "Russ Buettner",
  "author_title": "reporter",
  "affiliation": "New York Daily News",
  "summary": "A guide to using the Internet for campaign coverage, highlighting key websites and resources for issue backgrounds, voting records, and financial disclosures.",
  "keywords": [
    "Internet",
    "campaign",
    "resources"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Investigative Methods",
    "Data & Databases",
    "Government & Politics"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "FoxPro"
  ],
  "full_text": "At New York Newsday, reporter Joe Calderone wrote about certain firefighters who seemed to have won excessive disability pensions. When the newspaper closed, he moved over to the New York Daily News, and continued his investigation with another ex-Newsday reporter, Russ Buettner. Together, they decided to probe the entire disability pension system for firefighters. \"We wanted to look at the context of what was going on,\" Buettner said.\n\nThe reporters negotiated more than three months with the New York State Comptroller, using the state freedom of information law, for firefighter pension data. The database included more than 14,000 retirees, and about seven columns of information.\n\nThe reporters, already familiar with much about how the pension system worked and how the information was coded, needed about two days to analyze the data using FoxPro. \"The analysis was simple,\" according to Buettner.\n\nThe result was a story that ran Dec. 18 showing how one of every two ex-firefighters collected disability pensions. That included the fire department's own retired doctors.\n\nAlso, nearly four of every 10 pocketed lucrative line-of-duty pensions. That included one firefighter who injured his ankle after tripping on a crack in the sidewalk outside a firehouse.\n\nThe reporters also showed how the Fire Department brass won line-of-duty benefits more than front-line firefighters. And New York firefighters won line-of-duty pensions more often than their counterparts in the state's other big cities. That point was highlighted with a chart that showed New York's wide gap with Yonkers, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "pre-v2",
    "extracted_at": "",
    "verified": true
  },
  "similar": [
    {
      "slug": "1995-july-federal-campaign-reports-that-dont-add-up",
      "score": 0.273
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    {
      "slug": "1996-january-on-the-internet",
      "score": 0.265
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    {
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      "score": 0.242
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    {
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      "score": 0.235
    },
    {
      "slug": "2002-march-april-handy-internet-resources-for-reporters",
      "score": 0.232
    }
  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1996-january-putting-the-heat-on-pensions.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1996-january-putting-the-heat-on-pensions.json"
}