Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and the Local Heroes Fighting Back

Most Americans are likely to encounter the effects of government malfeasance or neglect close to home–from their governors, mayors, town councils, school boards, police, and prosecutors. In fact, deals shrouded in darkness are regularly made at the state and local levels, often the result of closed-door discussions between governments and industry without any scrutiny whatsoever from the public. Too often, as this groundbreaking new work of investigative reporting reveals, residents are intentionally kept on the outside, struggling to get information about significant issues affecting their communities–from car crashes and dirty drinking water, to failing safety gear–until the backroom deals are done and it’s too late to challenge them.

A work of riveting narrative nonfiction based on years of original reporting, Backroom Deals in Our Backyards tells the story of five “accidental activists”–people from across the United States who started questioning why their local and state governments didn’t protect them from issues facing their communities and why there was a frightening lack of transparency surrounding the way these issues were resolved. The secret deals, lies, and corruption they uncover shake their faith in government but move them to action.

For readers of Chain of Title and Superman’s Not Coming, Spivack’s revealing take on a hidden dimension of American politics will outrage and educate anyone who cares about the forces shaping their own communities.

Miranda S. Spivack is a veteran reporter and editor who specializes in stories about government accountability and secrecy. She spent twenty years as an award-winning editor and reporter for the Washington Post. A former Fulbright Scholar and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism at DePauw University and the author of Backroom Deals in Our Backyards (The New Press), she lives in Maryland.

Spivack will be in conversation with Leonard Downie Jr., the DC-based Weil Family Professor of Journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, was executive editor of The Washington Post from 1991 to 2008. During his 44 years in The Washington Post newsroom, he also was an investigative reporter, editor of the local and national news staffs, London correspondent, and, managing editor under executive editor Ben Bradlee. As deputy Metro editor, Downie helped supervise the newspaper’s Watergate investigation. He oversaw the newspaper’s coverage of every national election from 1984 through 2008. During his 17 years as executive editor, The Washington Post news staff won 25 Pulitzer prizes.

Downie is the author of eight books, including All About the Story, The New Muckrakers, The News About the News (with Robert Kaiser), The Rules of the Game, and 80: An Octogenarian’s Journal – A Daunting Yet Rewarding New Time in Life.