Here’s to Partnership

Last year, an envelope addressed to me arrived at NMPBS; its sender was not identified. I’ve received many such parcels in a 24-year journalism career, so I opened it with a mix of tempered excitement and skepticism. Inside was a cache of documents purporting to show that Jay Mitchell, who heads the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire Claims Office, received a $266,000 payment for smoke and ash cleaning costs at his Angel Fire home and casita. 
 
Mitchell’s wife, Lisa, received roughly $250,000 for losses she claimed for her real estate brokerage business in the Northern New Mexico ski town, which sits more than an hour from the epicenter of devastation wrought by this state’s largest-ever wildfire.  

I knew the context immediately. That’s because I’d been reading journalist Patrick Lohmann’s reporting in the online news outlet Source New Mexico. So, I knew that many people who’d lost their homes, their property, their pets — and their way of life — were still waiting for promised compensation from FEMA. 

Meanwhile, the man in charge of making sure those folks were made whole got a check with relative speed and ease. 

In short order, NMPBS teamed up with Source to get to the bottom of what happened. It was a natural partnership: I’ve known Patrick and admired his work for many years. He’s even brought some of his people-first journalism about Hermit’s Peak-Calf Canyon and its aftermath to New Mexico in Focus. And I worked for several years at the Santa Fe Reporter with Patrick’s boss, Source Editor- in- Chief Julia Goldberg, who’s a friend and a fantastic editor. 

Toss into the mix multimedia journalist Cailley Chella, the NMiF team’s newest member, and we had ourselves something of a dream team.  

Patrick and Cailley worked for months on the story, with assists from Julia and me. Along the way, Patrick laid hands on some more documents. The reporting deepened and expanded. In the end, Patrick and Cailley produced some of the best accountability journalism I’ve been a part of since I came to NMPBS three years ago.  

Patrick’s story published last week, and I cannot recommend in strong enough terms that you read it, if you haven’t already. Almost immediately after the piece went up on Source’s website, members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation called for Jay Mitchell’s resignation. A couple days after that, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Mitchell should step down. 

This week, I am thrilled to show you Cailley’s broadcast version of this difficult investigation. As always, she put impacted people first in the telling, leaving no doubt about what this story means. 
 
There’s no way to know where this is headed next; there never is with these kinds of stories. But working with highly skilled journalists, who also happen to be friends, at another news organization allowed us to do something that, alone, we never could have accomplished: expose some potential wrongs and present our findings both online and on the air.

I am grateful for the partnership, for Cailley, Patrick and Julia — and I think you will be too. 

-Jeff Proctor, Executive Producer