Danny’s work

Here are dozens of links to some of Danny’s work over the decades, published in newspapers and magazines and broadcast on radio and TV. We hope it helps researchers from students to journalists and historians.

We’ve arranged the links by subject, with brief descriptions of what the stories are about. Some websites might require you to register.

How the military mistreated wounded troops

Not long after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, Danny’s investigations began to reveal that the military was neglecting to diagnose and treat combat troops who came home with serious mental health disorders – including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), severe anxiety and depression. In fact, military commanders often punished troops with mental health problems on the grounds that they were “weak.” Danny profiled tormented soldiers at a major Army base, Fort Carson in Colorado. (link)

Danny’s NPR stories prompted the Pentagon to investigate. (link)

Emboldened by Danny’s stories, more troops spoke out. (link) And as a result of his exposes on NPR, the U.S. Senate called for investigations into the military’s mistreatment of troops with PTSD and other serious mental health disorders. (link)

Commanders at Fort Carson declared that they had learned from Danny’s reporting that they mistreated wounded soldiers and needed to change. Unfortunately, Danny’s visit revealed a more troubling story. (link)

Danny could never have exposed how the U.S. was mistreating wounded troops without the help of courageous inside sources – like soldier G.A. Pogany at Fort Carson. Danny profiled Pogany’s battle to save his own life and help others suffering from mental health disorders triggered by the wars. (link)

Another service member who spoke out against the way the military mistreated troops was one of the Marine Corps’ top lawyers - Colby Vokey. Vokey went public for the first time in his interviews with Danny on NPR. (link)

Many combat troops with mental health injuries can tell you they wouldn’t have survived without the courageous help of their spouses. After her husband came home from fighting in Iraq, Tammy LeCompte fought her own battles to prevent Army commanders from killing him - and to get the medical care he urgently needed. (link)

As the wars dragged on, Danny’s investigations revealed (with T. Christian Miller of ProPublica) that tens of thousands of troops had suffered traumatic brain injuries, also called TBI’s or concussions, mainly from explosions – yet the military had failed to diagnose or treat most of them. (link)

One soldier whose life was transformed by TBI was Victor Medina, at Fort Bliss in Texas. Medina and his wife reluctantly agreed to tell their wrenching story to Danny and his colleague only because they hoped it could help other victims of TBI. (link) 

Another soldier wounded along with his buddies by a bomb blast in Iraq (link) became so tormented by his traumatic brain injury that he decided to die - by what’s known as “suicide by cop.” Danny and his colleague obtained raw police videos of the terrifying standoff. (link)

Danny and ProPublica revealed, on NPR and in print, other troubling ways in which the Pentagon was mistreating combat troops with TBI’s. (link)

For instance, the military’s medical system continued not testing them properly. (link)

The military’s TRICARE insurance refused to cover the best kinds of rehab. (link)

And commanders refused to award Purple Hearts to troops wounded by TBI’s, in apparent violation of Army rules. (link)

The Army changed that practice as a result of Danny’s and ProPublica’s reports. (link)

Even routine military training causes traumatic brain injuries, back home in the U.S. and far from war - as Danny and ProPublica discovered. (link)

One encouraging sign in the military: a small but growing number of researchers and commanders recognize that the military is riddled with “toxic” leaders, who trigger or exacerbate mental health disorders among their troops. Enlightened commanders are trying to figure out strategies to solve the problem. (link)

Even after years of exposing all these problems, Danny revealed in 2015 (with Colorado Public Radio) that the military was still kicking out thousands of combat troops for “misconduct” – even though their war traumas often provoked that misconduct. (link) The investigation won Danny’s second duPont-Columbia journalism award.

The war on terrorism and civil liberties

The war on terrorism in the U.S. – and the federal government’s nationwide campaign, “See something, say something” - motivated corporations to begin spying on civilians. Danny and the Center for Investigative Reporting discovered, with the help of confidential law enforcement documents, that an undercover program at the world-famous Mall of America had turned innocent people’s lives upside down. (link)

Almost two-thirds of the people the Mall targeted were minorities. (link)

Danny spotlighted another kind of spying, with the Center for Investigative Reporting. They began investigating after Edward Snowden leaked astonishing documents in 2013, revealing that the National Security Agency (NSA) routinely spied electronically on millions of Americans – which many critics argued was illegal.  Danny’s NPR series Your Digital Trail (with CIR) showed how millions of Americans reveal intimate details about their lives every day - not to the NSA but to advertisers, internet companies and others.

Part 1: Overview (link)

Part 2: How corporations can pry into your life (link)

Part 3: Does the Fourth Amendment protect you from digital snooping? (link)

Part 4: Your digital trail could cause legal and political trouble (link)

How smart gadgets in your home can spy on you: Danny took another look at how law enforcement could pry into your life by getting access to data captured by “the internet of things,” from smart toy dolls to smart TV’s and refrigerators. (link)

Is that “certified sustainable” seafood in your supermarket really sustainable?

Danny’s series on NPR (with Margot Williams) shed troubling light on the booming business in “sustainable” seafood.

Part 1: The “sustainable” swordfish harvest massacres sharks - but helps giants like Walmart. (link)

Part 2: The Marine Stewardship Council declared that salmon from western Canada were “sustainable,” despite studies showing that salmon populations were in trouble. (link)

Part 3: It’s not easy, but a seafood company in Florida shows how to protect the oceans - and profit at the same time. (link)

Hospitals are crippling their nurses

Danny’s surprising five-part series in 2015 revealed that hospital nursing staff suffer more debilitating back injuries than any other occupation - including construction work. And they’re caused mainly by nurses’ daily tasks of moving and lifting patients.

Part 1: Nurses at Kaiser Pemanente in California kept pleading wih hospital executives to protect them, as they suffered such serious injuries that some needed extensive back surgery. But little changed until the nurses complained to government investigators. (link)

Part 2: Nursing schools teach their students “proper” techniques for moving patients, but laboratory research shows those methods are part of the problem. (link)

Part 3: A major medical center in North Carolina, Mission Hospital, routinely covered up the epidemic of nurses’ injuries - according to hospital staff and internal documents. Their lawyer argued that one nurse who had major back surgery injured herself lifting a tuna casserole. (link)

Part 4: The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, or the VA as people call it, is often portrayed as a deeply flawed institution. But the VA has become America’s leader in at least one way: protecting nursing staff from debilitating back injuries.art 1 Nurses at Kaiser Permanente and other medical centers pleaded with hospital executives to protect them - mostly in vain. (link)

Part 5: While tens of thousands of nursing staff got injured each year, government officials looked the other way. (link)

Part 6: Federal officials at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, declared they would start cracking down on nurses’ injuries for the first time - as a result of hearing Danny’s series. (link)

A medical warning every American should hear: a simple bump on the head could disable or kill you.

When Danny heard that his family doctor almost died after bumping his head in the attic, he turned it into a national investigation. It turns out that tens of thousands of Americans suffer from slow brain bleeds each year - “subdural hematomas” - caused by everyday slips and other accidents. Yet their doctors often don’t diagnose them- which can lead to permanent disability or death. Alert family members and physicians can save them. (link)

Government mistreatment of immigrant “detainees”

In the early 2000’s, long before most media or the public focused on these issues, Danny discovered that the government locked up hundreds of thousands of immigrants each year in federal prisons and county jails - often in deplorable conditions - even though they had not been charged a crime.

As one example, Danny exposed how guards at the Passaic County jail in New Jersey terrorized immigrant “detainees” with attack dogs. (link)

The next day, the administration of President George W. Bush banned the practice. (link)

At New Jersey’s Hudson County jail, guards beat up handcuffed immigrants for sadistic pleasure. (link)

Danny’s investigations also revealed that immigrants in detention found it difficult or impossible to get good medical care - leading in some cases to their deaths. (link)

How Louisiana destroyed its wetlands and made New Orleans vulnerable to hurricanes

Three years before Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans in 2005, Danny’s investigative series predicted it. Government officials and industry executives shrugged off scientists who tried to warn them. (link)

Danny’s stories on PBS’s Now with Bill Moyers (with producer William Brangham) (link), and his radio versions on NPR examined how economic development in the region destroyed world-class wetlands that used to protect it. (link) One of the industries most responsible is one of the most powerful: the oil and gas industry. (link)

McDonald’s and Temple Grandin made the animal industry more humane

Danny spent six months negotiating with McDonald’s executives before they agreed to let him tour their meat and egg suppliers, so he could report the surprising developments: McDonald’s had quietly become the leading corporation in America working to make animal raising and slaughter more humane. (link)

Danny’s profile of Temple Grandin, both a leading animal scientist and specialist on autism, helped popularize her work and lead to an award-winning movie about her life. (link)

Vietnam 25 years after the war

In 2000, Danny spent a month in Vietnam chronicling how the nation had transformed since the last U.S. troops left in 1975. The small but growing number of American visitors were struck by how warmly Vietnamese welcomed them. Danny examined the roots of reconciliation: how did so many Vietnamese move past years of war that killed as many as three million people? (link)

He also reported

• the U.S. bombing campaign, using the controversial defoliant Agent Orange, caused long-term damage to Vietnam’s environment and public health. (link)

• Vietnamese leaders were determined to remain Communists, but they hoped that capitalist methods could help farms grow more food in a nation where many went hungry. (link)

Solutions

One frustrating aspect of American journalism is that reporters often spotlight social problems without exploringing potential solutions. Danny’s 1980 book, Workplace Democracy, examined businesses from food markets to auto factories that used innovative methods to work better. (link)

Some of Danny’s “solutions journalism” on NPR includes

• Protecting nurses: if hospital executives invest in innovative technology and methods to prevent nurses from getting injured, they recoup the money - and more. (link)

• Saving soldiers: a small center with creative therapists is helping combat troops live better with PTSD, TBIs and other serious injuries - using methods the Pentagon ignores. (link)

• Affordable housing: Americans often make nasty jokes about mobile home parks and people who live there, but it’s often the corporate owners and systemic problems with property laws that cause the problems. (link) A bold solution: help the residents take control of their community. (link)

• Mortgages for the poor: Danny found another innovative housing program on the other side of the world - in Cambodia. It’s designed to help low-income people get affordable mortgages from a commercial bank. Some think banks should adopt the idea back in the U.S. (link)

• Let the workers run it: one typical low-income job, not just in Cambodia but in countries around the world, is hotel work - as doormen, front desk clerks and housekeepers. Danny profiled a hotel near Angkor Wat that’s turning over full ownership and control to its rank and file employees. (link)

• The organic solution: farmers in India are struggling not to go bankrupt as the cost of fertilizers and pesticides soar and their soils deteriorate. Farmers who’ve turned to sophisticated organic methods are thriving. (link)

• Sustainable seafood: The owners of a fishing company in Florida were determined to protect the oceans and make a profit. It’s tougher than mainstream fishing but they say it’s worth it. (link)

The Shuttle Challenger disaster

After the space shuttle blew up in 1986 as millions watched on TV, Danny was the first reporter to tell the world (with colleague Howard Berkes) that the rocket’s engineers had begged NASA the night before not to launch it - precisely because they were afraid that the rocket’s “O-ring” seals might not work in the cold weather, and it might blow up. That story and the federal investigation that followed helped trigger massive reforms in the space program. (link)