When prison healthcare provider Corizon Health faced a wave of lawsuits in 2021, it used a controversial strategy known as the “Texas Two-Step” to avoid liability for alleged medical negligence: the company shielded its assets and declared bankruptcy. Dakin Campbell and Nicole Einbinder’s 11-part Business Insider investigation revealed how the company’s key players, some with questionable financial histories, routed millions of dollars to insiders amid a pattern of alleged malpractice.
Their thorough investigation won the Silver award in the Global/National category of the 2024 Barlett & Steele Awards. Campbell and Einbinder gave The Reynolds Center a closer look into their reporting.
How it all started
Einbinder had been reporting on prison conditions and Eighth Amendment violations in prisons for a couple of years when one of her attorney sources brought up an unusual medical neglect case.
“One of his prisoner lawsuits against Corizon had been abruptly stayed because the company had filed for bankruptcy, and this attorney found that really odd [because] Corizon was one of the biggest correctional healthcare companies in the U.S.,” Einbinder said.
While she didn’t fully understand what was at play, she knew that something wasn’t right. Einbinder brought the case to Campbell whom she had worked with on various stories over the years, knowing his expertise as a business-beat reporter would be valuable.
“When I heard about this, I immediately wanted to go to Dakin and get his thoughts, and we both felt like something was there, and that was kind of the start for us to dig further,” Einbinder said.
A fully remote partnership
Quite unlike how the original Barlett and Steele investigative duo worked together, Campbell and Einbinder do all their joint reporting from opposite sides of the country: Campbell in North Carolina and Einbinder in California. In fact, the reporting duo had never met in person until May of this year.
“We’re constantly just messaging back and forth, and we’re on the phone for hours at a time going through drafts or documents,” Einbinder said about their virtual partnership. “And we just keep the line of communication incredibly open, which is so, so important for this kind of stuff, especially in a remote world.”
In addition to open and frequent communication, the team tackled almost every aspect of the investigation together. Campbell was more focused on the financial components of the story and Einbinder on the prisoner civil rights issues, but they were both closely involved with the investigation’s documents and sources.
“I think being on a lot of the interviews together was helpful because we were able to hear the same information and figure out the best way to go about it. We would always debrief after a phone call to get each other’s thoughts,” Einbinder said.
Beyond staying on the same page, this shared approach led to comradery in the face of setbacks and wins. “It’s also just nice having a colleague when you are in the trenches … It’s nice having that teamwork and that person to bounce ideas and ‘holy shit’ moments off of,” Einbinder said.
Campbell added: “We have developed some great trust in each other’s instincts and each other’s judgment, so I think that helps a lot.”
It’s not all sunshine and roses, though. “Our writing styles are a little different. I think the way we think about interviews and whatnot are a little different,” Einbinder said. Differences, especially stylistic ones, are to be expected. The duo tackles them with open minds.
“The reason that our reporting partnership has worked so well is I think we’re just really open to each other’s feedback. We’re both really open to hearing what the other person has to say,” Einbinder said.
Connecting the dots
From volumes of court records, short-seller reports and shell company registrations to medical malpractice cases, as well as a major bankruptcy judge’s resignation, the investigation was complex and took the reporters, and their readers, on many twists and turns. Making sense of the various layers of the story and how they interacted with each other was a major challenge for the journalistic duo.
“One of the most difficult parts of this reporting was connecting the dots. There were a lot of layers of obfuscation in the story … And we were trying to figure out, how is company A connected to company B? How is this person involved? Are they involved in multiple companies?” Einbinder said.
So, they went back to basics, mapping out their thought process with pen and paper to make sense of all the moving parts.
“We literally would just have pieces of paper, and we would draw lines and try to connect everything and have a visual,” Einbinder added.
Business reporting is human reporting
This is an investigative business story through and through but, at its core, it’s a story about how a powerful corporation and those who run it harmed some of the nation’s most vulnerable people.
“These companies – they touch on every aspect of people’s lives. They have a lot of influence on the public sphere, and I think it’s important to keep those really powerful institutions accountable,” Einbinder said about her role as an investigative journalist.
The victims of Corizon’s alleged medical negligence and malpractice helped ground the investigation. The team kept the crux of the story – vulnerable people – at the forefront of their reporting, even when parsing through pages and pages of legal and financial documents.
“This was a business story, but more importantly, it was a story about incarcerated people in this country who are dependent on these companies and dependent on these prisons and jails for healthcare,” Einbinder said.
Building trust with sources
Some of the story’s human sources experienced trauma. They claimed that their physical and mental health was harmed by Corizon’s insufficient and, in some cases, non-existent care. Others were family members of Hector Garcia, a man serving a six-day sentence who died under Corizon’s care.
Like this year’s Outstanding Young Journalist winner Caitlin Thompson and Global/National gold winners Margie Mason and Robin McDowell, Campbell and Einbinder practiced trauma-informed reporting to ensure they didn’t cause further harm to their sources.
Einbinder, who visited Garcia’s family in New Mexico to learn more about their loved one and their experience with the company, made sure that her sources knew they could share as little or as much as they felt comfortable sharing.
“They’re the ones who are welcoming you into their homes. They’re the ones who are talking about perhaps the most difficult moment of their life, and as the reporter, you want to make sure that that is something that they’re okay with,” Einbinder said.
“Whenever I start a conversation, I always say, ‘The ball is totally in your court. Here we are only going to talk about what you want to talk about. If I ask a question and it’s too much, you don’t want to get into it, no problem at all. We’re not going to talk about it,’” she added.
However, building trust with sources, especially victims, starts far before the first interview. Einbinder had plenty of conversations with the Garcias over the phone leading up to her visit. By the time they welcomed her into their home, they had established a rapport that made the difficult conversations more approachable.
“I don’t want to go straight into the incident. I don’t want to go straight into this horrible thing that happened. I want to get to know people beforehand,” Einbinder said.
Building trust with sources doesn’t stop when the interview ends. Einbinder tried to bring the conversation back to the present. “‘Oh, what are you doing later today? Have any fun weekend plans?’ Just try to get people out of that tough place. You’re not leaving them in a spot where the rest of their day is sad,” Einbinder said.
The reach so far
As a result of the team’s reporting, several corrections agencies rebid their contracts with Corizon’s successor company, YesCare. And last year, the U.S. Trustee Program raised concerns about Corizon’s bankruptcy, citing the Business Insider investigation. Nine senators, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, demanded information from Corizon and criticized its business practices.
During their investigation, Campbell obtained sealed court documents that revealed an alleged romantic relationship between David Jones, one of the country’s most powerful bankruptcy judges, and an attorney who represented YesCare. Jones has since resigned from the bench and is currently still under investigation by the Department of Justice.
“I don’t think either of us could have ever anticipated that would have happened, but through the source work and just sticking to the story, we were able to discover this relationship involving the judge that did cloud the Corizon deal and a lot of other deals,” Einbinder said.
Beyond the systemic, large-scale impact of the story, the reporters are also proud of the personal impact their work had on Corizon’s victims.
“One of the most heartwarming parts of this process for me was getting the text message from Hector’s sister after we published telling me, ‘You did it. You guys did this,’” Einbinder said. “That’s what makes all the long nights and stress … that’s what makes it all worth it. Knowing that the people that are impacted believe it can make a difference, and it did make a difference for them.”
Tips for aspiring investigative reporters
You have to start somewhere. “An investigation doesn’t need to be 5,000 words or 10,000 words. No matter what you’re doing in a newsroom, you can do an investigation on the side. If you’re writing 600-word stories, try to do 1,000 words,” Campbell said.
Campbell encouraged early-in-career reporters to stretch themselves within reason. “Don’t try to make big leaps. Don’t go from 600-word stories to 10,000-word projects. But every time you do something a little bit longer and you stretch your skill set, you’re learning,” Campbell added.
Einbinder emphasized the value of being inspired by fellow journalists’ work and collaborating with them on stories, if possible.
“I think collaboration really is just so important … collaborating with other people in the newsroom who are doing work that you admire, that you want to learn how they’re doing it – I think is so, so important,” Einbinder said.
For more tips on how to conduct investigative business reporting, including bankruptcy filings, check out “Chapter 18: 8-K Filings” of The Reynolds Center’s Business Beat Basics: A Guide to Covering All Things Business.
