Broken Scales: Justice, Corruption, and Shattered Lives

Wrongful convictions. Police officers who violate the law and go unpunished. People who die behind bars with no real investigation into how or why. Recipients of the Lipman Center Initiative in Reporting on Race and Criminal Justice grant will discuss their investigative projects that focus on those parts of the criminal justice system that often go unexamined — innocent people serving time for crimes they didn't commit, patterns of misconduct that persist because no one is held accountable, and the deaths in county jails that rarely make headlines or draw scrutiny.

This event is sponsored by the Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights at Columbia University.

Monday, September 28, 2026, 12:15 - 1:45pm

Pre-registration strongly advised! Box lunch will be provided.

This event is limited to the Columbia Journalism School community only.

Columbia Journalism School, World Room, 3rd Floor, Pulitzer Hall, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY 10027

Moderated by: Lipman Center Program Manager Dolores Barclay

Panelists:

• Jerry Mitchell, founder and reporter, Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting
• Claudia Amendoeira, investigative reporting fellow, Mississippi Today
• Dillon Bergin, senior investigative and data journalist, MuckRock
• Oishika Neogi, independent journalist

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Bios

Jerry Mitchell, the founder of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, leads Mississippi Today's investigative team, which has worked with The New York Times since 2022. His stories led to the prosecution and conviction of Medgar Evers' killer, the klan members involved in the bombing of a Birmingham Church where four little girls died, and the klansman who masterminded the deaths of civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner. He has won numerous journalism prizes, including the Chancellor and Polk, and was a Pulitzer finalist and a MacArthur "Genius."

Claudia Amendoeira is an investigative reporting fellow at Mississippi Today, where she covers criminal justice. Before that, she reinvestigated and produced a documentary about a wrongful conviction case in West Memphis, Arkansas, reported on psychiatric residential facilities for children, and worked as an editorial assistant at the Aspen Institute. Amendoeira graduated with honors from Columbia Journalism School as a fellow from the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism. She is a graduate of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, and originally from Cascais, Portugal.

Dillon Bergin is a senior investigative and data journalist for MuckRock, where he uses data and public records to power investigative reporting with partner newsrooms. He is also the director of the Data Liberation Project and hosts FOIAFriday, a monthly community podcast about all things public records. Dillon was a member of the Documenting COVID-19 team, a project funded by MuckRock and the Brown Institute for Media Innovation. Before that, he was a Report for America corps member with Searchlight New Mexico and a Fulbright Germany Journalism Fellow.

Oishika Neogi is a New York-based investigative reporter covering the criminal justice system, prisons and misconduct. Her work has been featured in outlets including Mother Jones, The New York Times, New York Focus, Al Jazeera and Documented. She is a former fellow at Columbia Journalism Investigations, recipient of prizes from the New York News Publishers Association and the Institute for Nonprofit News, and a finalist for the 2026 Livingston award. Neogi is a Special Correspondent with The Florida Trib, where she covers death row and executions, and is working on a grant-funded investigation on jail deaths in Florida.

Dolores Barclay is an author and former National Writer and Arts Editor of The Associated Press. She worked for AP first as a reporter covering City Hall, federal and criminal courts, and the police beat for the New York City bureau, before advancing to National Writer and investigative reporter. She later moved into culture coverage as a writer and critic and rose to manage and overhaul AP's culture beat as Arts and Entertainment editor. Her investigative series with fellow National Writer Todd Lewan, "Torn From the Land," was a seminal work in documenting the massive loss of wealth suffered by Black Americans through land loss. The project was awarded the Aronson Prize for Social Justice Journalism, the APME Enterprise Award, and the Griot Award of the New York Association of Black Journalists and was submitted for a Pulitzer Prize. Barclay, who has taught feature writing at Rutgers University, is the author of two inspirational books, and co-author of "A Girl Needs Cash" and "Sammy Davis Jr. My Father,” now a film project with the Emmy-winning actress/producer/writer Lena Waithe.

Columbia University makes every effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities. If you require disability accommodations to attend this event, please contact the Office of Disability Services at 212-854-2388 or disability@columbia.edu at least 10 days in advance of the event. Requests for CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) or sign language interpretation require two weeks’ notice.