Undercover Reporting

The series examines welfare inefficiencies - and the ease with which some who are not needy can take advantage of the aid - based on six months of reporting, including Ed May's three-month undercover stint as a welfare case worker in Erie County, New York. 

Tribune Investigative Task Force member William Mullen uncovered evidence of widespread election fraud in the March 21 presidential primaries in Chicago while working undercover as a clerk in the Chicago Board of Election Commissioner's City Hall office.

Medicare and Medicaid fraud have been perennial reporting topics since the 1960s, often requiring undercover techniques to amass specific details.

The Tribune reports on the experiences of a group of staffers who among them sponsor a total of 12 children through "four of the largest and best-known child sponsorship organizations - Save the Children, The Christian children's Fund, Children International and Childreach."