Pulitzer Center Update April 11, 2025
Impactful Reporting — Deep in the Heart of Texas
Country:
Texas Keeping Pulitzer Center Grantees Busy
Texans like me learn at an early age that the Lone Star State has a certain mystique: cowboy and cowgirl hats, rodeos, boots year-round, even in the stifling summer heat, Tex-Mex, barbecue, Willie Nelson and Beyoncé. The list goes on.
Everything is big in Texas, including the news. The state has been getting a lot of attention in national and international headlines lately, from the immigration crisis along the border to a deadly measles outbreak that recently claimed another young life.
While it’s not strange that the nation’s second-most-populous state (behind California) is in the spotlight, there’s further evidence that what happens in Texas has implications for the rest of the country, and the world.
And journalists supported by the Pulitzer Center are in the middle of it.
For example, the project The AI-Powered Eyes of Texas, by AI Accountability Network Fellow Francesca D'Annunzio, examines how the state spent millions on technology to boost border security (“a digital border across Texas and beyond”). In Texas Energy Crossroads, a collaborative project with local TV news stations, a team of Texas reporters looks into the state’s world-famous energy industry. Texas is a leader in renewable energy, but President Trump and Republicans in Austin are pushing oil and gas drilling to achieve what they call global “energy dominance.”
And in the heartbreaking investigation When Home Is the Danger, StoryReach U.S. Fellow Paul Flahive investigates how Texas has failed many children who are victims of abuse and neglect. “Over the past six years, we found that 1,200 Texas children have succumbed to abuse and neglect by adults charged with their care,” Flahive writes.
Journalists supported by the Pulitzer Center have covered underreported stories from some of the most far-flung places on the planet. (See global reporting supported by the Center.)
But impactful reporting is not just overseas. Sometimes, it’s in the bustling cities, small towns, and rolling hills of Texas.
Best,
Impact
Meta's communications office in Brazil has confirmed that it removed 14 profiles with child sexual exploitation content created with artificial intelligence from Instagram, following a Pulitzer Center-supported report by AI Accountability Fellow Sofia Schurig for Núcleo.
The investigation uncovered 14 Instagram profiles with thousands of followers sharing AI-generated sexualized images of children and teenagers, violating Brazil’s Statute of the Child and Adolescent. The accounts also promoted links to subscription platforms like Patreon and Fanvue, as well as WhatsApp and Telegram groups, where users could access additional illegal material, including content depicting real children. Following the report, Patreon confirmed it had removed the accounts involved. Fanvue did not respond.
Read the full investigation.
Photo of the Week
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