Mike McGraw
Special Projects Reporter
Mike McGraw is the Hale Center for Journalism's special projects reporter, working on in-depth stories about various topics, including government accountability. He also works with NPR and KCUR's Harvest Public Media component on stories about Midwestern agriculture and agribusiness. He comes to KCPT after a 30-year career on The Kansas City Star's investigations team, where he and a colleague won a Pulitzer Prize for a series about the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He has covered issues as diverse as the business of college sports, art forgery, the beef industry, workplace safety and wrongful convictions.
Stories by Mike McGraw
An Old Soldier’s Virtual Heaven
The 70-year-old photo, discovered behind an old kitchen cabinet in Huntington, West Virginia, held tightly to its secrets; only the barest of clues were etched on the back in pristine penmanship. It’s a man in uniform, highly posed, perhaps in his mid-20s, holding a pipe to his mouth. He would be well into his 90s…
The ABCs of Port KC
This week KCUR reporter Suzanne Hogan and KCPT reporter Mike McGraw are exploring the economics behind Missouri River navigation and Port KC development. During a conversation that aired today on KCUR 89.3, McGraw told Hogan, “Historically, the port has been just about the river and a big freight facility down in southern Kansas City. But…
Who’s Winning, and Losing, In Port KC Development Projects
When Kansas City needed help to keep a prestigious global architecture firm from leaving town last year, it reached out to an unlikely partner — the Port Authority of Kansas City. The loss of the firm, Populous architecture, which designs sports arenas around the world, would have been a huge blow to Kansas City and…
Commentary | Putting a ‘solid rocket booster’ on my journalism
Last month, KCPT presented the play “Justice in the Embers” with the Center for Investigative Reporting and The Living Room Theatre in a unique StoryWorks KC production. In this piece, which was first commissioned and published by CIR’s Reveal News, KCPT reporter Mike McGraw looks inside the newsroom at the process of taking his investigative reporting and putting it on…
Supreme Court Decision Has Repercussions for KC Man Serving Life Sentence
The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for a resentencing hearing in the case of a Kansas City man serving a life sentence in federal prison for a 1988 explosion that killed six Kansas City firefighters. Bryan Sheppard, one of five defendants serving life sentences after their 1997 convictions in federal court, will now…
‘I Can’t Let It Go’ | Part II
EDITOR’S NOTE: This first-person account of one journalist’s attempts to shed light on potential problems in the U.S. justice system is part of a larger effort by KCPT and The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) to explore the meaning of justice in the context of the 1988 explosion in south Kansas City that killed six…
‘I Can’t Let It Go’ | Part I
EDITOR’S NOTE: This first-person account of one journalist’s attempts to shed light on potential problems in the U.S. justice system is part of a larger effort by KCPT and The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) to explore the meaning of justice in the context of the 1988 explosion in south Kansas City that killed six…
As MU looks hard at diversity, the world’s first J-School also needs to revisit a ‘notorious act of racism’.
In the wake of historic changes at my alma mater in Columbia, it seems as though everybody in a position of power there has been clawing for higher ground. University administrators who were forced to resign don’t want to be seen as racist, maybe just clueless. The Board of Curators, which actually thanked those former…
372 letters home: The paper trail of war
Thanksgiving Day 1942, Camp Sutton, N.C. — “…I also gave thanks for the country we live in. Honey you may not realize it but this is the most wonderful nation in all the world and if possible I’m going to do my best to help protect and defend it.” That passage is from a letter that…
Upside Down-Land: Bitter Harvest
As Cerner and other businesses use TIF to ensure their growth, Kansas and Missouri keep squeezing their poorest citizens.