Uncover your congressman's relationships with banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

The Associated Press Managing Editors, in conjunction with the Sunlight Foundation, will hold four Webinars in the next week for reporters interested in learning how to track political contributions from banks and lenders such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to their local congressmen.

The sessions will be led by Bill Allison, senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation. Allison ran some popular workshops with APME earlier this year to train journalists to examine local requests for Congressional earmarks.

A veteran investigative journalist and editor for nonprofit media, Allison worked for the Center for Public Integrity for nine years, where he co-authored The Cheating of America with Charles Lewis, was senior editor of The Buying of the President 2000 and co-editor of the New York Times bestseller The Buying of the President 2004. He edited projects on topics ranging from the role of international arms smugglers and private military companies in failing states around the world to the rise of section 527 organizations in American politics.

Prior to joining the Center, Allison worked for eight years for The Philadelphia Inquirer—the last two as researcher for Pulitzer Prize winning reporters Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele.

This new round of training will show reporters how to use freely available Web sites like OpenSecrets.org and GovTrack.us to arm themselves with the facts you need to ask meaningful questions of the members of Congress.

Firms at the heart of the current economic crisis -- finance, insurance and real estate firms -- have been the most prolific donors to members of Congress and among the most influential special interests during the past decade.

Bills that these firms supported -- including the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, which did away with archaic Depression-era banking rules, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention & Consumer Protection Act of 2005, which rewrote the nation's bankruptcy laws to favor creditors over debtors, and the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, better known as The Bailout Bill -- were passed by successive Congresses, and significantly changed the way this sector of the economy operated. How did your members vote on the financial industry's agenda?

It's easy to sign up for any of the fourWebinars, and you can do it right up to the last minute. There is no charge. From APME's point of view, it's part of its NewsTrain program mission to give journalists practical tools to do their jobs better. Sunlight's goal is to help journalists and others be their own best congressional watchdogs by improving access to information.

Dates and times of the Webinars are below. Click on the date to register.

• Thursday, Oct. 23 at 9 a.m. EDT.
• Friday, Oct. 24, at 10 a.m. EDT.
• Monday, Oct. 27, at 12:00 EDT.
• Monday, Oct. 27, at 5 p.m. EDT.

After registering, you will receive an e-mail with instructions for how to join the Webinar.

All APME asks in return for your participation is that you let it know when you publish stories based on what you learned during the Webinar. Send a link to your coverage to apme@ap.org.

Posted Oct. 22, 2008