Pulitzer Winner Corey G. Johnson on Tampa’s Lead Problem (re-release)

The FRONTLINE Dispatch

GBH

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4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2022

⏱️ 17 minutes

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Summary

For years, hundreds of workers at the Gopher Resource lead smelting plant in Florida were exposed to dangerous levels of lead in the air. “Poisoned,” a series from the Tampa Bay Times, in collaboration with FRONTLINE’s Local Journalism Initiative, uncovers the consequences of what happened.

Times reporters Corey G. Johnson, Rebecca Woolington and Eli Murray gained access to thousands of pages of regulatory reports, company documents and employee medical records. In March 2021, Johnson joined FRONTLINE’s executive producer, Raney Aronson-Rath, on The FRONTLINE Dispatch to discuss the project and what the reporters found after months of investigating. This year, Johnson and his collegues were awarded a Pultizer Prize in Investigative Reporting for the project.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	When you go into this plant, there's all this brown dust everywhere and it looks like dirt
0:07.4	and the worker explained that it wasn't dirt, it was layered.
0:11.5	That's Tampa Bay Times reporter Corey Johnson.
0:14.5	And the prize goes to Corey Ginger.
0:17.3	Last week, Johnson and his colleagues were Becca Wollington and Eli Murray were awarded a
0:22.1	Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for their series Poisoned.
0:26.9	Their reporting was supported in part by Frontline's local journalism initiative.
0:31.2	The county's in Tampa Bay had the highest rates of adult lead poisoning.
0:37.5	And so that started the Odyssey.
0:40.4	The series investigates Go For Resource, a smelting plant in Tampa,
0:44.7	where hundreds of workers were exposed for years to dangerously high levels of lead.
0:50.5	The reporter spent years pouring through thousands of pages of documents,
0:54.8	regulatory reports, and employee medical records.
0:58.9	Today we're re-releasing a conversation I had with Corey Johnson in March 2021,
1:04.0	all about this important investigation.
1:06.6	I'm Rainier and St. Roth, the executive producer of Frontline.
1:09.7	And this is the Frontline Dispatch.
1:15.6	The Frontline Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation,
1:19.2	committed to excellence in journalism and by the Frontline Journalism Fund,
1:23.6	with major support from John and Joanne Hagler.
1:26.6	Support for Frontline Dispatch comes from the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center,
1:31.0	dedicated to providing the latest therapies and cancer specialists who are experienced in your
	...

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