Global Reporting Centre

Fewer cities are vying for the Olympic Games — perhaps with good reason. Christine Nesbitt is a three-time Olympian and gold medal-winning speedskater for Team Canada. After hanging up her skates, she studied urban planning, writing her thesis on the legacies of Olympic Villages. She says, "It's like every city that's hosted the games has overshot their budget by, in some cases, like hundreds of percent, 700%..." Learn more about how the Olympics impact a city's housing market, particularly affordable and social housing. https://bit.ly/3AlE2lW

At the outset of COVID-19, California introduced Project Roomkey, a temporary shelter system that provides private rooms to people experiencing homelessness. But some likened it to a prison, choosing to live in encampments instead. Meanwhile, housing advocates say it was designed to sweep unhoused people off the streets and out of sight. Learn about LA's efforts to address homelessness as it tries to become a sports capital. https://bit.ly/46G7rU8

KGW News Anchor Laural Porter cited the Global Reporting Program's new documentary, 'France's Olympic Gamble' and our podcast State of Play: Summer Games on an episode of Straight Talk that examines the political backdrop of this year's Olympics. https://bit.ly/4fcXAc8

Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) members gather for a listening party for episode 3 of State of Play, "Torched Promises," which features one of VANDU's members, Samona Marsh. She was among the first few inhabitants of Vancouver's Olympic Tent City and had a front-row seat as the city's promise to provide social housing for low-income people fell apart. https://bit.ly/3Slk9Si

After a two-year hiatus, the 2022-23 Global Reporting Program cohort traveled to Cambodia to investigate the impacts of a ban on subsistence farming around Tonle Sap Lake. Produced in partnership with Mongabay https://bit.ly/41Mo5y2

Fixers risk their safety and, in some cases, their lives to help global news outlets report from around the world. But ‘getting the story’ shouldn’t come at the expense of local journalists’ safety — read more here: https://lnkd.in/gvzzNyB8

Google has agreed to pay California local news outlets $110 million, but not everyone is happy. California lawmakers had been working on legislation that would force Google to share advertising profits with news organizations. But lawmakers axed the bill after reaching a backroom deal with the tech giant. GRC board member and Columbia University professor Anya Schiffrin says Google uses a number of tactics to kill regulatory measures. She found Google owes publishers in the U.S. $10 billion annually in a 2023 study. "In California, they should have been paying $1.4 billion a year," she says. Learn about the tactics Google uses to evade regulators worldwide and avoid compensating publishers fairly. https://bit.ly/3XkXsAn

Indigenous farmers from southern Mexico are angry over landscape damage and poor consultation associated with a massive wind power project by French energy giant EDF. The Zapotec communities finally had their day in court in France, where judges allowed their case to proceed. Read the latest by Chris Arsenault and Philippe Le Billon. Supported by our academic-journalism collaboration grant. https://bit.ly/3Av1Fsk

"For better or for worse, LA created the contemporary Olympics. Car-free games? No-build games? We did it 40 years ago. What could we possibly learn about that we didn't invent first?" Read Alissa Walker's latest for Torched newsletter, which features our new podcast, State of Play! https://bit.ly/4dzhJrS

“Whereas city leaders could place strict limits on public spending for the 1984 Games, the IOC now locks host cities and governments into covering all overruns for nonsecurity costs. And with cost overruns only increasing for each Olympics—about 185% for the last three Summer Games—it’s not a matter of if those costs will fall on Angelenos for the 2028 Olympics, but how much and how hard,” writes Andrea Gutierrez for CalMatters. Christine Nesbitt knows this. She’s a three-time Olympian and a gold medal-winning speedskater for Team Canada. After retiring from sport, Nesbitt went to UBC for urban planning and wrote her thesis about the legacy of Olympic Villages on housing markets—focusing on affordable and social housing. She says, “It’s like every city that’s hosted the games have overshot their budget by, in some cases, like hundreds of percents, 700%…” https://bit.ly/3zfeZkm